Evaluate OpenCollective about wmf-operating-model HOT 4 CLOSED

OpenCollective is the most prominent example of a group of relatively new organisations that provide a more limited range of fiscal sponsorship services and do so in a more automated way, making it easy for Open Source projects to set up a way to receive and spend funds immediately. However, because the involvement of the organisation is limited, this approach may exacerbate problems in a community and can sidestep the establishment of necessary governance.

Karen Sandler, https://academic.oup.com/book/44727/chapter/378968544

from wmf-operating-model.

Have looked into this further, OpenCollective is for when you don't want to have a incorporated entity like a foundation and instead have everything a foundation would deal with be done by your fiscal host. In this way, fiscal hosts are I think offering a similar type of legal and financial wrapper to projects run as collectives that would be offered by a fiscal sponsor like the ASF to incubating projects.

I think that the value of incorporating the foundation might be undone by tying the foundation to a particular fiscal host in order to use OpenCollective. Additionally, I don't know if the necessary reporting (e.g. to Companies House) would be possible.

However, we might want to use OpenCollective:

• if there is some benefit to perhaps receiving say US donations via a fiscal host located in the US; or
• if the foundation itself wanted to be a fiscal host.

NB: there is a known SEO scam involving spurious sponsorship of projects by e.g. betting websites.

from wmf-operating-model.

Moving to Review, unless this info needs to be written down elsewhere (I don't think we should?) then I'd like to close this.

from wmf-operating-model.

Agreed to close, info on ticket sufficient.

from wmf-operating-model.