This policy applies to everyone who has been invited to claim expenses incurred as a result of participation in Transformational Governance activities. This includes participants in the Power Shift: Community Value Exchange and members of the stewarding group.

The Open Collective platform provides complete transparency of available budget, costs incurred and payments made. We all share responsibility for making good use of available resources and are encouraged to highlight any needs that are not currently being covered or any tensions arising from the decisions and payments being made.

Members of the Power Shift: CVE community are able to claim reimbursement of expenses incurred as a direct result of taking part in community activities. Stewards are expected to cover the basic costs associated with working on this project from their share of the grant, but can claim travel and other expenses when participating in in-person meetings.

Everyone is expected to take reasonable (but not exhausting!) steps to keep costs to a minimum - for example, by taking advantage of any available low cost/no cost options.

What is covered?

Reasonable expenses can include:

Additional costs of care for dependents (children or other dependents)
Cost of internet access or a quiet space to participate in online meetings
Cost of a BSL interpreter
Cost of public transport to any in-person meetings (or additional transport costs arising as a result of access needs)
Additional cost of food because of travel away from home

We would not normally expect to cover:

Loss of earnings (Power Shift: CVE participants should see the policy on financial support for the circumstances when an honorarium can be claimed;
Expenses arising from participation in non-TG activities unless there has been a collective agreement that this will benefit our project.

If you are not sure whether a particular expense can be claimed, please contact Sarah and Zahra initially (before incurring the cost).

Submitting expenses

Expenses are claimed via the Open Collective platform
As part of the Open Collective claim process you will be asked to upload a receipt or other evidence of the cost incurred (this can be a photo, screenshot, pdf etc.)
Any text you put in the description category will be listed publicly on the page so please do not include information you wish to remain confidential.

Approving expenses

The finance subgroup will identify 2 members to hold admin rights within Open Collective and these roles will rotate around the stewarding group.
These admin roles will receive an email notification each time an invoice or expense is submitted. They will review the information provided, aiming to approve the expense within 5 working days (see OC video approving payments for how this is done).
There is scope to ask for additional information via the Open Collective platform. Any questions or tensions relating to the use of resources will be made visible so we can find a solution together.
All expenses and grant claims should be submitted by the 15th of the month in order to be included in that month’s payment run. Our fiscal host, Huddlecraft, will process payments on or near the 25th of the month.

Contribution to TransGovcollective

Thirty Percy grant - fiscal hosting circle

Collective balance