In short: Open Collective Foundation, the fiscal host we use for Beehaw, will no longer accept donations starting on March 15, 2024. They will shut down completely at the end of the year, December 31, 2024. This was an extremely sudden decision by them; we were only made aware of it last night through their email to us. The cause given is "Open Collective Foundation’s business model is not sustainable with the number of complex services we have offered and the fees we pay to the Open Collective Inc. tech platform;" they note that they froze accepting new collectives last year.

This obviously presents a lot of problems for Beehaw. Here are all the relevant dates given to us by Open Collective:

Last day to accept funds/receive donations: March 15, 2024
Last day collectives can have employees: June 30, 2024
Last day to spend or transfer funds: September 30, 2024
Day they formally dissolve: December 31, 2024

Because Open Collective holds our funds, based on our understanding it seems likely we will not be able to keep our existing funds unless we find a 501(c)(3) organization to be our new fiscal host or become one ourselves by September 30. (EDIT: Or, we just spend it all preemptively.)

Open Collective Foundation's also email writes that:

We will be providing assistance and support to you, whether you choose to spend out and close down your collective or continue your work through another 501(c)(3) organization or fiscal sponsor.

and so we'll be contacting them as soon as possible to see if we can arrange a solution with just their help.

But: in the mean time (and in case they can't help us, given the suddenness of this announcement) we need your help to find solutions--and we will probably need them urgently. If you have any help you can provide us, any services you can recommend, or anything that might help us quickly (and as painlessly as possible, given the short notice) transition to another service, that would be greatly appreciated. Fair warning that this will also likely derail the March financial update until we have a clearer picture of what we'll do and if OCF can help us going forward.

Thanks, and hopefully we can resolve this situation without difficulty.

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[–] alyaza 25 points 9 months ago (4 children)

yeah, we're vaguely aware of some of these. hopefully, when we reach out to OCF they'll be able to hand us off to one of them or something like that--but obviously, it's a good idea to have a backup plan, and you don't just want to have the single basket of eggs after the rug gets pulled out from under you like this

[–] odium@programming.dev 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Don't know anything about this kind of thing, but I found this post: https://lemmy.world/post/12531572.

Since OCE accepted lemmy.world, they'll probably accept you too. I checked OCE's main website and found this list of other affiliated funds: https://opencollective.com/search?isHost=true.

[–] Lionir 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I would think OCE wants members to be in the EU - currently none of us are. I'd have to look into it.

[–] remington 4 points 9 months ago

For collectives currently hosted by Open Collective Foundation in the US, if you are curious about Open Collective Europe and our fiscal hosting offerings, please reach out to us. We are here to assist during this transition, serving as the equivalent of a 501(c)(3) in the US. Alongside our partner organizations, such as Open Collective Inc. and Open Source Collective, we are mobilizing to provide solutions to ensure the continuity of your work. Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns at oce@opencollective.com

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