Open Collective Blog

Open Collective Update—October 2021

New ways to payCryptocurrency is now enabled for Open Source Collective, and we hope to offer them more widely soon. If your Collective is with OSC, go to settings > tiers and tick "Enable Crypto contributions" to opt in. Recurring PayPal is live (previously only for one-time contributions)—a small

how-to

How Money Flows through Open Collective

Two interactive graphs with explainer videos, one simplified and one in-depth. Thanks to the platform's financial transparency, you can trace exactly what happens to each dollar, and these can explainers show how it all works. Money Flows: SimplifiedInteractive graph → Money Flows: In-DepthInteractive graph →

Hacktoberfest Evolves To Include Financial Contributions

This year Hacktoberfest is encouraging participants to support projects financially.

case studies

Ersilia: How Open Collective is Redefining Open Organizations

Ersilia is a nonprofit organisation that supports research against infectious and neglected diseases. Our goal is to facilitate adoption of artificial intelligence tools to accelerate the development of new medicines. We focus on establishing collaborations in low-resourced settings where the costs of drug discovery are prohibitive.In the last 20

OSC

You can now use Crypto to Support Open Source Software

Today we are adding limited support for cryptocurrencies on the Open Collective platform. Collectives hosted by Open Source Collective and Open Collective Foundation can now receive contributions in over 40 cryptocurrencies.

News

OCF's Strategic Plan: Solidarity in Action

Here's what we're up to—we want your feedback!Not long ago, OCF announced our strategy focused on solidarity. Now we want to share a more concrete plan to put it into action. Here's a rundown of what the OCF team is currently doing, what we plan to get started

Pionir Free School Students outside in Serbia

case studies

“Free Schools Are the Future of Education”

An interview with Marko Kazic, creator of Pionir Free School in Serbia which serves as a replicable model towards building an exponential culture.

News

Use your Stock for Good

You can now use your public stock to support Open Source Creators on Open Stocks.

case studies

What happens when you donate to Morevna Project?

Transparently trace a $500 contribution through Open CollectiveThe mission of Morevna Project is to develop, improve and popularize open-source technologies for animation. While all money flows are transparent on Open Collective, it's interesting to trace and explain the path it takes in a specific example. Morevna Project's recent blog post

News

Open Collective Update—September 2021

New legal & display name settingsYou can now differentiate your public display name from your private legal name. Open Collective is a transparent platform, so profiles are public on the internet. We also deal with official stuff requiring real names, like receipts, payments, and tax forms. Up to now, this

case studies

Helping Open-Source Contributors Escape Afghanistan

How the community came together to help families escape a war zone.The Persian proverb یکی برای همه و همه برای یکی means "Every one should sacrifice for the community, and the community should come together for the one". This has been exemplified over the last month, as the open

New mother comfortable with her post pregnancy body by Jacob Lund Photography from NounProject.com

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When Open Collective Met Okionu

Jacquelyn Clemmons of Okionu Birth Foundation wants to to normalize complete and holistic postpartum care through by supporting both parents with nourishing meals following the birth of a child.

News

Open Collective Update—August 2021

"Solidarity as our guiding principle"Open Collective Foundation has published a newly clarified strategy: to create a legal, financial, and technical commons for the solidarity economy. We can build bridges between 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsorship, open source, mutual aid groups, and the solidarity movement. Read it → Solidarity as our

case studies

New funding for the Net’s oldest discussion network

The Usenet Big-8 Management Board has joined Open CollectiveDecades before Facebook and Twitter, Usenet was the Internet’s main platform for announcements, discussions, and chat. The venerable communication network remains active thanks to worldwide volunteers. Online discourse today is dominated by commercial social media platforms that gather and exploit user

News

Solidarity as our Guiding Principle

Open Collective Foundation is creating a legal, financial, and technical commons for the solidarity economyOCF has a unique role to play as steward of a legal, financial, and technical commons—a piece of shared infrastructure—that is resonating deeply with the solidarity economy movement. We can build bridges between 501(

case studies

Making funding happen for Happen Films

Using the medium of movies to showcase inspiring solutions to the wicked problems of our times. Happen Films believes the solutions are out there, and that people are already pioneering the transition we need in society. They find and share these stories to inspire others to make change happen in

News

Open Collective Update—July 2021

New announcement systemLook for 🔥 to find out about new features on the platform. All about Projects → Did you know you can embed the contribution button directly on your website, so people can pay for an event ticket or donate to your project without leaving? Here's how → Virtual cards let you

case studies

OCF Updates we Love! Spring/Summer 2021 Edition

Check out the latest updates from some of the initiatives hosted by Open Collective Foundation.

case studies

The Multi-Talented Makerspace Nook

Enabling the Sakubva community in Zimbabwe to reimagine its future."None of my friends believe that we have a future or will be able to live a normal life here." This is what one youth told us about how they feel about living in Sakubva. The township is one of

how-to

Ten ways to make decisions about money

Open Collective is home to thousands of collaborative communities raising and spending funds transparently, giving us a front-row seat to observe many diverse examples. Each group is different, and one size does not fit all. But we can say that understanding different options and consciously choosing between them makes for

News

Open Collective Update - June 2021

Virtual CardsWant to make purchases and pay for subscriptions directly from your Collective balance? If you're with Open Collective Foundation or Open Source Collective, now you can! Virtual cards work anywhere you'd use a credit or debit card online. Get one → What is Fiscal Hosting?Our new illustrated guide explains

Events

Emergent Practices from the Decentralized Co-operative Web

By Mai Ishikawa Sutton, Co-founder and Lead Editor of COMPOST Magazine Decentralization has become a buzzword the last several years, particularly in the realms of technology and grassroots organizing. From the promise of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies and smart contracts, to the natural metaphors inspired by fungal networks, organizers have been fascinated

News

Open Collective Roadmap Update (Mid-May to July)

At Open Collective we like to be as open and transparent about our development process as we are with our finances, but we haven't communicated that process as well as we could. We're changing that today. This is the first of a series of posts where we will describe how

team

Open Collective's impossible team away day

Article excerpt from Zooming Beyond Time and Space, by team member Alanna Irving. My team at Open Collective is 13 people across Brazil, Mexico, United States, the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, India, and New Zealand. We’ve been fully remote for years, but before the pandemic we had quarterly

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Announcing Virtual Cards for Collectives

Access funds managed through Open Collective with Virtual Cards.