Third-Party Fundraising Tools and Benefits
Although receiving funds through the Open Collective platform is the swiftest, most direct & efficient way to receive funds, OCF’s hosted initiatives can also use some third-party tools to receive funds for their initiative.
Please be sure to review our Outside Entities Policy and Outside Accounts Policy before moving forward with any of these options
Note:
You must reach out to us if you decide to use one of these third-party platforms. We may already have an account on the platform, in which case we will help you get things set up. It will also speed up the process of getting the funds into your budget.
Since you are part of Open Collective Foundation, funds will need to go directly to us and then we’ll make sure they go into your initiative’s budget.
Since moving funds from these sites into your balance is a manual process, and due to external platforms’ own unique disbursement processes, the funds will not reach you as quickly as those raised through Open Collective. There will likely be delays.
OCF will charge our standard fee on funds raised on the external sites.
The below tools have been used by Open Collective Foundation's initiatives in the past and send us information about which initiative the funds are for.
💡 Use our EIN (81-4004928) when registering in order for your initiative's collected donations to be grouped in OCF’s umbrella.
Let us know if you would like to register with Benevity, and we will get your initiative signed up under our host's umbrella
Benefits include:
Fund-matching opportunities
many companies use it as their giving portal
Access to donors
Initiative becomes searchable on Benevity's website
Reporting to OCF for streamlined disbursement of funds back into account
Credits are made into your initiative's budget 1x/month
Onboarding Info:
Note: funds raised from Benevity are disbursed to us on a monthly basis.
We will set up your Benevity profile using the information & logo you use on your OC page. If there is alternative/additional information you would like to present, please be sure to specify and we will be sure to include it.
The following are not set up to work specifically with fiscally hosted projects and do not report where donated funds are meant to be allocated to. This means there will be delays in the funds arriving to your account.
If you wish to have the raised funds from the below platforms allocated to your fund, you must inform us about the incoming funds (please include links + screenshots). Unclaimed funds will be directed to OCF's operating costs.
Use this link to setup a Facebook Fundraiser with Open Collective as the recipient
Contact us when you start a new fundraiser so that we can get the raised funds correctly allocated to your account
❗ Due to Facebook's disbursement schedule, there could be a ~1 month delay in disbursement of raised funds to your initiative after the Facebook fundraiser has ended. Funds arrive from Facebook in batches, so it is unlikely OCF received your fundraising campaign's money all at once.
GoFundMe Charity Fundraising
Select OpenCollective Foundation as the beneficiary in order for your donors to receive tax-deductible status [recommended],
or you collect them on your own behalf, and transfer them to your initiative as one lump sum. [it will not be tax-deductible for your donors]
If you use any of these tools, please email us. Also, let us know if you are interested in a platform not listed above and we will see if we can make it work.
Please email us if you are expecting a payment from the third party service so we can look out for it and credit your account.
Since initiatives can receive and spend funds via PayPal from within the Open Collective platform, you should not set up an external PayPal account for receiving or spending funds. Please review our Outside Accounts Policy for more details.
Unfortunately, OCF cannot direct funds received from Amazon Smile to specific hosted initiatives. Initiatives should not use Amazon Smile to raise money for their work.
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 (e.g. Venmo) that 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. If you would like to make direct cash payments out to recipients, please review our Cash Assistance Policy.
Refer to our Official Information & Documentation if a third-party tool asks you for it (e.g. address, EIN, bank info, 990s)
Through OCF’s 501(c)(3) status, our initiatives are eligible for a variety of nonprofit rates and benefits. Don’t forget to inquire to vendors and venues about a possible discount!
Keep in mind that nonprofit rates are not a legal process. It's up to the vendor's discretion whether or not they offer initiatives a nonprofit rate.
Reach out to us if you would like to create a Google for Nonprofits or Google Workspace (a.k.a. G Suite) account for your initiative.
Techsoup has expressed that discounts through TechSoup do NOT extend to fiscally hosted projects.
Slack offers discounts through TechSoup, and Techsoup is not compatible with fiscal hosting.
OCF can process matching donations (including employee giving programs, matching gifts, contributions-matching, funds arriving from third-party giving platforms, and grant matches), but in order to do so, we need additional information about the donation.
To ensure that a donation match goes through, please email us the following:
Donor name
Donor company/employer name
Initiative name
Date(s) of original donation (if in two parts)
Dollar amount of original donation
The match amount or rate (i.e., 2x, 3x, 4x)
If known, the platform used by the company/employer
Without the above information, we cannot guarantee that funds will be allocated properly and in a timely manner. This is due to the difficult manual processes required in order to correctly allocate those funds.
If needed, you can find our EIN number on the Official Information and Documents page. Any email communications from your matching gift program should go to [email protected].
If you are expecting funds and have not seen them arrive, or if you have donated funds via third-parties, please email us at [email protected] with the above information included and we will be happy to locate and allocate those funds with you.
