2022 in Review: Open Collective Foundation
What an incredible year 2022 was for Open Collective Foundation—an indication of the surge of energy, ideas, and resources flowing into solidarity movements. We are humbled and happy to provide a legal and financial toolbox the groups who make up these movements need to do their important and diverse work in communities.
Contributions grew nearly 3x over the previous year, to $30m+ from 55,500+ unique donors, and the number of amazing Collectives we host nearly doubled, to 461. Over $19m was paid out to over 2,500 activists, community builders, researchers, and creators who need resources to sustainably make positive change. And, to keep up with all this growth, we launched new services and programs, developed our team and board, and evolved as an organization.
2022 Leaderboard
Top Collectives by number of contributors
- 1117: 1K Project, direct support for families affected by the war in Ukraine.
- 697: Bushwish Ayuda Mutua, a network of neighbors supporting neighbors / una red de vecines apoyando vecines.
- 394: South Philly Fridge, community fridges and pantries which provide access to food aid 24 hours a day.
- 332: Club A Kitchen, mutual aid group that provides food, groceries, PPE and hygiene supplies.
- 310: Chicago Community Jail Support, volunteer mutual aid network supporting those recently released.
Top Collectives by amount raised
- $9.36m: 1K Project, direct support for families affected by the war in Ukraine.
- $1.81m: OpenMined, an open-source community making the world more privacy-preserving by lowering the barrier-to-entry to private AI technologies.
- $1m: Data Empowerment Fund, grants to data infrastructure prototypes (data trusts, cooperatives, exchanges).
- $943k: Digital Infrastructure Grants, research grants for the study of digital infrastructure maintenance.
- $931k: art.coop, growing the Solidarity Economy movement by centering systems-change work led by working class, queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Color (QTBIPOC) artists and culture-bearers.
Top Funders
- Rubio Butterfield Memorial Foundation $1.1m
- Patrick J. McGovern Foundation $1m
- New Venture Fund $700k
- Ford Foundation $628k
- CODEPINK $600k
Every single one of our Collectives, big or small, has an amazing story! Check out some of these news highlights from Collective Updates, and case studies of them in action.
Open Collective Foundation
Open Collective
Elena Rubashevska
Open Collective Foundation
Elena Rubashevska
We did a lot in 2022....
We developed a new Discovery Dashboard where you can explore Collectives by topic and location.
We supported four artist-organizer fellows to create media about the solidarity economy with 12 months of unrestricted funding.
Open Collective
OCF's Solidarity School hosted many events, about participatory budgeting, collaborative funding, democratic decision-making, money health, the solidarity economy, and legal advice, as well as offers and needs markets, welcome parties, and community forums where Collective connect and support one another.
We welcomed native-led Collectives like Sovereign Bodies Institute and Native Roots Network, and facilitated a donation to Iron Path Farms supporting carbon-offsetting and reforestation.
Open Collective
We now enable employment with benefits for 38 Collective workers, giving those working in unincorporated groups access to stable livelihoods usually only available to larger, formally established organizations.
We supported Open Collective to be fully translated into Spanish.
We figured out many new service offerings for our Collectives as their fiscal sponsor, like enter a commercial lease, register a trademark, give grants to their community, and receive donations in cryptocurrency.
We re-designed our website and created an animated explainer video, to better tell OCF's story and how it all works.
Collectives nominated and voted on a board member to represent them in Foundation governance, with the selected new director set to be announced soon!
As we continue to scale up and mature, OCF is on a journey evolve as a foundation in accordance with our values and our guiding principle of solidarity. In 2022, we added several new team members, evolved our board of directors, and implemented new internal processes, like the team setting their own salaries.
Alanna Irving
Open Collective Foundation
We can't wait to see what 2023 has in store! Follow up on social media (Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook) to find out.