Please Read: Critical changes to jawns.club's financial status
Published on March 9, 2024 by Alex Hillman
Hello citizens of jawns.club,
This isn't a fun message to write, but an important one to share.
We posted about this news as soon as we initially learned about it, but over the last week, more details have been confirmed and it seemed important to provide a more detailed update.
The critical message is that on March 15th – less than 1 week from today – our fiscal host is turning off the ability for us (and hundreds of other collectives) to collect recurring donations.
This isn't a fun message to write, but an important one to share.
We posted about this news as soon as we initially learned about it, but over the last week, more details have been confirmed and it seemed important to provide a more detailed update.
The critical message is that on March 15th – less than 1 week from today – our fiscal host is turning off the ability for us (and hundreds of other collectives) to collect recurring donations.
What happened?
About a week ago, we learned that the Open Collective Foundation is closing. Not the software platform, just the fiscal host. You can read more about that here. The entire situation is weird, confusing, and frustrating.
The net result, though, is the following:
The net result, though, is the following:
- We were given ~2 weeks notice that our recurring donations would be turned off on March 15th. This is upsettingly short, but out of our control. We hoped that new information would emerge about a migration path, but in the last week very little has changed.
- We are being given until September 2024 to either spend down our account balance, which is $2,535.90 USD today. At that point we'll need to transfer the balance to another fiscal host collective or another eligible non-profit partner.
To make matters worse, the entire communication process from the OCF has been poorly timed and generally unclear, leaving us with more questions than answers and overall a lot of uncertainty about about our options for migration.
If there's any silver lining here, it's that we aren't the only collective affected. A number of other Mastodon servers are being impacted, and some organizations that are much larger (including some with payroll responsibilities) are impacted as well.
Is jawns.club going away?
No, were here to stay, even if the exact path forward isn't clear.
Another silver lining is that even once recurring donations are turned off, we have enough cash in our balance to cover our hosting costs for a little under 2 years. And that's if we do absolutely nothing. Which isn't our plan.
First and foremost, we are actively looking for a new fiscal host that would accept us, and once that's confirmed, we'll go through a migration process that will require all recurring contributions to be re-confirmed. Unfortunately, there's no way around this.
In the event that we can't find a fiscal host on OpenCollective, we'll explore other options that may not be as seamless as OpenCollective has been.
The sooner we can do this the better. We do not plan to wait until the September deadline to solve this problem.
Another silver lining is that even once recurring donations are turned off, we have enough cash in our balance to cover our hosting costs for a little under 2 years. And that's if we do absolutely nothing. Which isn't our plan.
First and foremost, we are actively looking for a new fiscal host that would accept us, and once that's confirmed, we'll go through a migration process that will require all recurring contributions to be re-confirmed. Unfortunately, there's no way around this.
In the event that we can't find a fiscal host on OpenCollective, we'll explore other options that may not be as seamless as OpenCollective has been.
The sooner we can do this the better. We do not plan to wait until the September deadline to solve this problem.
What exactly will happen on March 15th?
On March 15th, all of our active recurring contributions will be stopped automatically.
When that happens, the OpenCollective platform will send out an email notification to all recurring contributors telling them that we are is in the process of migrating to a new fiscal host and therefore their current contribution payments to your collective have been paused.
When that happens, the OpenCollective platform will send out an email notification to all recurring contributors telling them that we are is in the process of migrating to a new fiscal host and therefore their current contribution payments to your collective have been paused.
If your account is linked to PayPal, you will likely to receive a notice saying your subscription has been cancelled (we have no say or control over this).
Thanks for your patience, understanding, and contributions
Speaking candidly, our volunteer efforts to run this server are typically very low stress but this experience has been deeply confusing, stressful, and un-fun.
We're hopeful that once we have a way to re-activate subscriptions and contributions, you'll consider chipping in again to ensure that the jawns.club server can continue operating for a long time.
Thanks as always for your trust in us, and for your participation in the jawns.club community as well as the wider fediverse.
-Alex & Nelson
We're hopeful that once we have a way to re-activate subscriptions and contributions, you'll consider chipping in again to ensure that the jawns.club server can continue operating for a long time.
Thanks as always for your trust in us, and for your participation in the jawns.club community as well as the wider fediverse.
-Alex & Nelson