Participatory Grantmaking Community Expenses Policy

The Participatory Grantmakers Community is a global collective of individuals and organizations interested in sharing knowledge and practice to improve participatory grantmaking and encourage its use within philanthropy.

Our community is governed using a participatory governance structure as outlined in our Governance Handbook.

Review & Approval Process

Currently, the majority of our expenses are approved by our Programs Consultant, with coverage from the Operations Circle as needed. The expense requests are reviewed for proper documentation (see below) and alignment with the annual community budget as approved by the Accountability Circle and Consensus Circle, and our Pay Policy.

As outlined in our Governance Handbook, any expenses that represent a 5% change to the approved budget, or more than ￡5,000, requires approval by the Accountability Circle and Consensus Circle. Changes to the budget made under this amount may be decided by the Programs Consultant.

No person may approve their own expenses.

All expense requests will be reviewed and approved at least every 2 weeks.

Documentation Required

All expense requests must include an invoice that details the nature of the expenses including the work performed, the estimated time spent on each task, and if appropriate, documentation for any reimbursements.

Example template:

1 hour on 7/5/24 for HR Circle
2 hours in Oct. 2023 for Fundraising Circle

Instructions for submitting expenses from the US:

Unfortunately, Open Collective is not able to process PayPal payment to the U.S. so U.S. residents will need to choose the bank transfer option. Instructions below:

Go to the expense record and click the edit symbol on the left hand side of the page
Edit "Payment method" - change to "new bank account"
Select USD as currency
Select "Local bank account"
Fill out the remaining info with your bank Account name, ACH routing number and Bank Account number