Basics
Once you apply to join Open Collective Foundation and receive an approval email from us, you can immediately get started with managing your initiative on Open Collective.
🎉 Welcome!
For an overview of using the platform, check out the Open Collective documentation. It has a ton of great information about features like the transparent budget, initiative profile, tiers, goals, and other tools now at your disposal.
💡 Their Quick Start Guide is another great place to start.
Open Collective Inc. is the platform that OCF operates on. Open Collective has their own homepage, budget, and documentation. These docs are a pared down version to relay information that is specific to OCF.
Our documentation includes information for how people can contribute to your initiative. Feel free to share this Financial Contributions overview with your contributors!
Using funds from your initiative’s budget is simple:
Someone submits an expense.
An initiative admin (someone on your team) approves it.
OCF's team reviews it (confirms that the expense meets requirements e.g. having a valid receipt).
They get paid.
Initiative admins can set an expense policy to give guidance to expense submitters.
ℹ Expense payments may relate to: an invoice for work completed for the initiative; or reimbursement for purchases made on behalf of the initiative.
Individuals and organizations can request payment from an initiative by submitting an expense.
Initiative admins also have the option of drafting an expense and then sending an invitation to someone else to complete and submit it.
This is a great option for those admins who know already know exactly how much they want to pay/reimburse someone, and just want to invite them to the platform.
Once submitted, expenses need to first be approved by initiative admins and then,
Expenses are processed and paid out by Open Collective Foundation biweekly (on Mondays and Thursdays).
OCF can pay out funds via PayPal and electronic bank transfer via Transferwise.
Make sure to review the Expenses and Getting Paid section of Open Collective’s documentation for a full overview of the process.
If your initiative would like to pay out funds to individuals who do not have bank account access/PayPal, please review our Cash Assistance Policy.
Unfortunately, Venmo, Cash App, and other similar services we are aware of do not currently allow nonprofit accounts. Therefore, your initiative cannot send (or receive) funds from these sources directly through Open Collective.
In the situation where bank transfer and PayPal are not viable transfer methods, an individual on your team can send funds to the intended recipient via one of these services and then submit for reimbursement.
In the Reimbursement, make sure to include:
the name of the indirect recipient of the funds and
what they are using those funds for,
if available, the receipt(s) for their activities,
as well as the receipt from the service you used to transfer them the funds.
All funds for your initiative must be held in your budget with Open Collective Foundation. Read about the limitations of our fiscal hosting service, as well as our Outside Accounts Policy.
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