“It is with a heavy heart that I’m writing today to inform you that the Board of Directors of the Open Collective Foundation (OCF) has made the difficult decision to dissolve OCF, effective December 31, 2024”.
More details in the hyperlink below.
https://daniel-lange.com/archives/186-Opencollective-shutting-down.html
That’s a huge loss if true… I’ll be refreshing the Open Collective blog like crazy now.
A clarifying blog post from the Open Collective entity most of us were probably thinking about when we saw the headline: https://blog.opencollective.com/open-collective-official-statement-ocf-dissolution/
From day one, OCF was committed to experimentation and innovation. We were dedicated to finding new ways to open up the nonprofit space, making it easier for people to raise and access funding so they can do good in their communities.
OCF was created by Open Collective Inc. (OCI), a company formed in 2015 with the goal of “enabling groups to quickly set up a collective, raise funds and manage them transparently.” Soon after being founded by OCI, OCF went through a period of rapid growth. We responded to increased demand arising from the COVID-19 pandemic without taking the time to establish the appropriate systems and infrastructure to sustain that growth.
Unfortunately, over the past year, we have learned that Open Collective Foundation’s business model is not sustainable with the number of complex services we have offered and the fees we pay to the Open Collective Inc. tech platform.
In late 2023, we made the decision to pause accepting new collectives in order to create space for us to address the issues. Unfortunately, it became clear that it would not be financially feasible to make the necessary corrections, and we determined that OCF is not viable.
OCI does the platform hosting and development. OCF does the non-profit org work. OCF pays the OCI.
At least that’s what I read from it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if only weeks from now involved people announced a competing/new platform without this setup.
We are beginning a staged dissolution process that will allow our over 600 collectives the time to close or transition their work. Dissolving OCF will take many months, and involves settling all liabilities while spending down all funds in a legally compliant manner.
- And it’s not sustainable?
Open collective always looked successful, popular, sustainable, professional.
Really unfortunate for those 600. March 15 is very short term.
March 15 is the last day to accept donations. You will have until September 30 to work with us to develop and implement a plan to spend down the money in your fund.