Open Collective
Open Collective

Urbanists.Social

We run a Mastodon server for people into bikes, transit, and walkable cities.

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Financial Contributions

Recurring contribution
Backer

Become a backer for $5.00 per month and support us

Starts at$5 USD / month

Latest activity by


+ 45
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Make a custom one-time or recurring contribution.

Latest activity by


+ 114

Top financial contributors

Individuals

1
Sam Wight

$420.14 USD since Nov 2022

2
Zak Patterson

$200 USD since Nov 2022

3
Michael McLean

$193 USD since Nov 2022

4
Noel Hidalgo

$150 USD since Nov 2022

5
cyklista

$150 USD since Dec 2022

6
Hannonizer

$100 USD since Nov 2022

7
Sean McMains

$100 USD since Dec 2022

8
Incognito

$64 USD since Nov 2022

9
Marty Cormack

$60 USD since Nov 2022

10
Tor Lillqvist

$60 USD since Nov 2022

11
Ben Fulton

$51 USD since Dec 2022

12
RA Siy

$50 USD since Nov 2022

13
Tony Jordan

$50 USD since Nov 2022

14
Steven Hirschorn

$50 USD since Nov 2022

15
Eric Smith

$50 USD since Nov 2022

Organizations

1
Fidelity Charitable

$250 USD since Jan 2023

Urbanists.Social is all of us

Our contributors 120

Thank you for supporting Urbanists.Social.

Sam Wight

Admin

$420 USD

Zak Patterson

Admin

$200 USD

Michael McLean

backer

$193 USD

Noel Hidalgo

backer

$150 USD

cyklista

$150 USD

Hannonizer

backer

$100 USD

Sean McMains

$100 USD

Incognito

$64 USD

Marty Cormack

backer

$60 USD

Tor Lillqvist

$60 USD

Ben Fulton

$51 USD

Budget


Transparent and open finances.

$
Today’s balance

$1,745.33 USD

Total raised

$4,179.97 USD

Total disbursed

$2,434.64 USD

Estimated annual budget

$5,448.37 USD

Expenses

All time

Expenses paid

44

Amount disbursed

$4,221.26

Tags# of ExpensesAmount (USD)
server costs
16$1,771.93
urbanists.social
14$1,732.11
no tag
1$365.13
operating costs
10$250.41
odd.town
2$60.75
one-off expenses
1$40.93

View all expenses

Contributions

All time

Contributions received

125

Amount collected

$4,333.22

Tiers# of ContributionsAmount (USD)
recurring
62$2,562.00
one-time
63$1,771.22

View all contributions

Connect


Let’s get the ball rolling!

News from Urbanists.Social

Updates on our activities and progress.

Virtual cards, emails, and sustainability

Hi folks! Another quick update. One of the major reasons why we chose to be fiscally hosted with the Open Collective Foundation is that it uncouples the server from mine and Zak's finances. Prior to joining the OCF, all of the donated funds...
Read more
Published on December 16, 2022 by Sam Wight

We're now fiscally hosted by the Open Collective Foundation!

Hi folks! We're now fiscally hosted by the Open Collective Foundation! This means that all your donations to Urbanists.Social are tax deductible, as OCF is a 501(c)(3) organization. This also means that the money no longer lives in my bank...
Read more
Published on December 13, 2022 by Sam Wight

Update on OCF

Hi folks, we're working on re-applying to the Open Collective Foundation. To do that, we'll have to 'empty' the account balance temporarily with a fake expense or invoice. After we re-apply and are (hopefully) approved, we'll submit the mon...
Read more
Published on December 2, 2022 by Sam Wight

About


A place for urbanists to connect with each other

We're an ad-free Mastodon server for urbanists: people who like bikes, transit, and walkable cities. We provide a home for our members on the Fediverse: a network of interconnected, federated servers. Urbanists.Social is organized and funded by the community itself: we take no money from outside sources, only donations from our users.

This OpenCollective exists to:
  1. Give our users more confidence in choosing us as their new internet home. Our budget is completely transparent. Anyone can look and see how many months of funding we have, how much we're spending on server costs, etc.
  2. Ensure the longevity of our Mastodon server. Our server costs are not huge. If even only a few users give a little bit monthly, we're able to cover them no problem. Running this as a collective allows us to provide a safe, ad-free, non-commodified social media experience on the web.

About our budget

We use a yearly budget system to make things simple. We have two categories of costs: server hosting costs and operating costs. Server hosting costs are the funds we pay to our host: Masto.Host, as well as our domain name. Operating costs are miscellaneous costs for things like email, contact points for our DMCA designated agent, and more. 

Here's our current server costs:
  • Masto.Host - $1320/yr ($110 monthly). We're on the Galaxy plan with the ElasticSearch addon and no other addons. We pay for this monthly, not annually.
  • Google Domains - $30/yr. We pay for this annually.
Here's our current operating costs:
  • Email account - $47/yr. We use Proton and pay yearly.
  • Phone number - $30/yr. We need a phone number to list publicly on the DMCA designated directory. We purchase a phone number to protect the privacy of our agent. This is paid for yearly.
  • Mailing address - $240/yr. We need a mailing address to list publicly on the DMCA designated agent directory. We purchase a mailing address to protect the privacy of our agent (so they don't have to list their address publicly). This is paid for monthly.

Our team