"Solidarity as our Guiding Principle" strategic pivot published by Open Collective Foundation
Mike Strode, Kola Nut Collaborative
While its pre-pandemic collectives were focused on the free and open source software space, mutual aid collectives found its lightweight fiscal sponsorship service to be ideal for the type of work they desired to do. The ongoing development of a shared service legal and technical infrastructure rooted in a desire to advance a financial commons which allows people to get on with moving their projects forward could be deeply transformative.
As someone who often sits at the intersection of technology and solidarity economy, I was a zealous advocate for the platform before joining the team and am deeply excited to be part of this new direction in their work. Check the link to a summary and the full blog post below.
Open Collective Foundation allows initiatives to raise and spend money under the umbrella of our 501(c)(3) nonprofit, using a powerful open-source tech platform with financial and community engagement tools.
We are radical administrators for a decentralized future. As a fiscal sponsor, OCF handles the compliance side of raising and spending money (like dealing with the IRS and banks), so that groups can focus on their work. We build trust by sharing OCF’s budget with full transparency, and enable our hosted initiatives to do the same.
We are only one node in the interconnected Open Collective network, a decentralized platform of fiscal hosts offering their legal status and bank accounts to Collectives around the world, who are working to share power, knowledge, and wealth. Financial power and community power go hand in hand.
Open Collective Foundation exists to spread wealth and power and root it in community (the solidarity economy) by unlocking access to funding.
Solidarity is our guiding principle.
Praxis: Timebanking - Social Economy - Food Systems - Community Resiliency