ANNOUNCEMENT: Open Collective Foundation Dissolving Effective 12/31/2024
Published on February 28, 2024 by Mike Strode (OCF)
It is with heavy hearts that we inform our community that our Board of Directors has made the difficult decision to dissolve the Open Collective Foundation (OCF), effective December 31, 2024.
We are beginning a staged dissolution process that will allow our over 600 collectives the time to close or transition their work. All collectives should have received an email from myself (Mike Strode). If you did not receive it, please check your spam folders and let us know.
To our collectives: we are proud of the work we have been able to do together. We have been honored to build community with you and we are committed to providing care and support as we navigate this together.
How we got here
From day one, OCF has been committed to experimentation and innovation. We were dedicated to finding new ways to open up the nonprofit space, making it easier for people to raise and access funding so they can do good in their communities. We experienced a period of rapid growth and increased demand arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, tripling in size without taking the time to establish the appropriate systems and infrastructure to sustain that growth.
In recent months, we have explored a number of options to address the substantial challenges we are facing. Unfortunately, it became clear that it would not be financially feasible to make the necessary corrections, and we determined that OCF is not viable. We have decided that an orderly dissolution is the best option to pursue while there is still time to do so.
Next steps
As we proceed with dissolution over the next several months, our focus will be on providing our collectives the support they need while performing the many legal and financial tasks associated with dissolving a nonprofit.
Please refer to your email from myself for information about next steps.
You can email [email protected] with any questions.
Cameron Burgess
Posted on February 29, 2024
To clarify - the Foundation is shutting down, but the software is remaining online. Correct?
Mike Strode (OCF)
Posted on February 29, 2024
To clarify - the Foundation is shutting down, but the software is remaining online. Correct?
This question is addressed both in the published FAQ and the update posted by the platform. Open Collective Foundation is a fiscal sponsor and our dissolution has no bearing on the future of the Open Collective platform.
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Nathan Hewitt
Posted on March 4, 2024
Open Collective's statement, which also tries to clarify the differences between the organizations, can be found here: https://blog.opencollective.com/open-collective-official-statement-ocf-dissolution/
Richard Bodo
Posted on February 28, 2024
I hope that there is an entity that can take the OCFs place, that will charge what is needed to make it work. There is nothing that can genuinely take the place of Open Collective Foundation. No fiscal sponsor comes close to being forward looking enough and having the online infrastructure to allow collectives to be transparent.
Even at 20% of funds collected, my organization would have been looking eagerly forward to transparently accounting for funds on the site of trusted fiscal sponsor. We were so stoked for the re-opening of applications.
For a new entity trying to do some good, the work of establishing trust with all parties is huge, sometimes the biggest issue, that work is worth the cost, whatever the real cost is.