Host prepayment + brief update on Fiscal Host Transition
Published on March 16, 2024 by Alex Hillman
Hello citizens of jawns.club!
It's been about a week since our last update about the collapse of our fiscal host, and our developing plans for how we will maintain our server's financial and functional health.
It's been about a week since our last update about the collapse of our fiscal host, and our developing plans for how we will maintain our server's financial and functional health.
12 Months of Hosting are now Prepaid
Over the last week, Nelson and I discussed and agreed on the decision to pre-pay for 12 months of our hosting service.
The most obvious benefit to this decision is that we can be certain that jawns.club's server bills are paid for the next year. In reality, the 12 month prepay may last a bit less than 12 months, depending on plan upgrades to increase our capacity, but directionally this gives us a lot of room to breathe.
The less obvious benefit to this decision is that it accelerates the spend-down of the cash on hand in our account. Prior to the forced "pause" of our subscription contributors, we had a little over $2500 in money that would need to either be spent by September 2024, or transferred to a new fiscal host. Our prepayment of $1,428.00 reduces the cash we have to worry about transferring by more than half.
The most obvious benefit to this decision is that we can be certain that jawns.club's server bills are paid for the next year. In reality, the 12 month prepay may last a bit less than 12 months, depending on plan upgrades to increase our capacity, but directionally this gives us a lot of room to breathe.
The less obvious benefit to this decision is that it accelerates the spend-down of the cash on hand in our account. Prior to the forced "pause" of our subscription contributors, we had a little over $2500 in money that would need to either be spent by September 2024, or transferred to a new fiscal host. Our prepayment of $1,428.00 reduces the cash we have to worry about transferring by more than half.
Fiscal Host Alternatives
While things are still a bit uncertain, it seems like one of two things will be possible moving forward.
Option one: Open Collective has added to their list of alternative fiscal hosts, including an option for a large and reputable nonprofit that may be available as a comparable option to Open Collective Foundation, all the way down to the % fees we paid for the service. If this comes through, it has the potential to be the most seamless transition.
Option two: I'm speaking with a local and values aligned nonprofit organization who is very familiar with fiscal hosting, about the potential for them to join OpenCollective and provide us with a transition path. This is still an early conversation, and personally I consider it preferable in terms of working with a Philly-local partner that I consider trustworthy, but it's much too early to count as definite.
Whichever of these paths we choose (or a third we haven't discovered yet), it appears that Open Collective will require that all recurring subscribers manually re-initiate their recurring contributions. As we get closer to this, we'll let all of our previous contributors know how to help us get things back on track.
We hope this bit of visibility it helpful, and that the annual prepayment puts any concerns about our server going away in the near term at ease.
As always, if you have questions, let us know!
-Alex & Nelson
Option one: Open Collective has added to their list of alternative fiscal hosts, including an option for a large and reputable nonprofit that may be available as a comparable option to Open Collective Foundation, all the way down to the % fees we paid for the service. If this comes through, it has the potential to be the most seamless transition.
Option two: I'm speaking with a local and values aligned nonprofit organization who is very familiar with fiscal hosting, about the potential for them to join OpenCollective and provide us with a transition path. This is still an early conversation, and personally I consider it preferable in terms of working with a Philly-local partner that I consider trustworthy, but it's much too early to count as definite.
Whichever of these paths we choose (or a third we haven't discovered yet), it appears that Open Collective will require that all recurring subscribers manually re-initiate their recurring contributions. As we get closer to this, we'll let all of our previous contributors know how to help us get things back on track.
We hope this bit of visibility it helpful, and that the annual prepayment puts any concerns about our server going away in the near term at ease.
As always, if you have questions, let us know!
-Alex & Nelson