Goals

You can define goals to share an overview of your financial plan with your community and to track your progress.

To create your own Collective goals, go to your Collective profile, click on Settings and then on Collective Goals.

You can choose between three different visual options.

Auto: Will switch from Logarithm to Linear when 30% of the goal is achieved.

Logarithm: Will make the progress bar appear larger to incentivise new contributions. This is backed by social proof.

Linear: Exact visual representation.

How to Create a Goal

To create a goal, give it a title, select a type:

• Balance goals are based on your current balance.

• Yearly budget goals are based on your estimated annual budge

it as either a goal balance or yearly budget, specify the amount you need and add a description. Don't forget to save your changes when you're done!

Tiers

Tiers can be used to provide perks and rewards to supporters, set membership fees, build funding drives (when used with goals), or simply categorise your contributions. You can control tiers by accessing the Tiers section in your collectives Settings:

Enabling flexible contributions

You can define whether you can to allow flexible contributions or not by manipulating the Enable flexible contributions checkbox.

Creating custom tiers

You can also create custom tiers on the same page. Click on add another tier:

A preview of the tier you are creating will appear alongside your the configured settings:

Configuring Tiers

The following options are available when creating a new tier:

Type

Generic, membership, service, product, donation.

Name

e.g. Gold Sponsor, Member, Supporter. This is the only required field to add a new Tier with the default values; all others are optional.

Description

Important information for Financial Contributors such as what does this tier mean or which rewards are included.

Interval

The frequency in which such contribution will be charged. It can be a one time contribution, a monthly one, yearly or flexible.

Amount type

Fixed or flexible. Flexible amounts can be adjusted by users as they wish.

Suggested amounts

Suggestions for contributors to pick from.

Default amount

A preset starting amount.

Minimum amount

The minimum amount allowed for this contribution, if any.

Available quantity

For limited edition contributions (such as special edition items, one-time events, etc).

Button text

The action word on the Tier card users click (such as donate, join, contribute). You can also add emojis if you wish!

Goal

Target amount you're trying to raise in this Tier.

Force standalone page

You can create a standalone page for the tier to send as a direct link to potential contributors:

You can access it from your Collective page by clicking on Read more.

Edit and delete a tier

To edit a tier, click on the 'Edit Tier' Button.

To delete a tier, click the delete button in the bottom left-hand corner

Support Tiers

A great way of having more companies supporting your project is by offering them a support tier, where you offer access to support in exchange for financial contributions. Companies may or may not use it but it gives them the peace of mind to have someone who knows the codebase very available to help them within a reasonable time frame.

An example is Babel's Base Support Sponsor tier.

Here is a template for a basic support tier for your collective:

Become a Base Support Sponsor with a yearly donation of $24,000 ($2k/month paid in full upfront). Get your logo on our README on Github and on the front page of our website, as well as access to up to 2 hours of support per month. Support will be remote with the option of a share screen or via private chat.

With the above tier example, your responsibilities as a Collective are:

• Adding the sponsor's logo on your website

• Engaging with them to provide the support you've agreed to via the channels specified

The Sponsor's responsibilities are:

• Contacting you via the specified channels

• Limiting their support requirements to the time slots specified

• Scheduling the time slots at least a week in advance

FAQ

For Collectives

How do I define the price?

It depends on a lot of things but mainly on how critical is your open source project to the organization (which is arguably quite subjective). We recommend starting at $500/month with a yearly commitment ($6k upfront) for access to two hours of support a month. As you grow, you can start increasing the price.

Why a yearly commitment?

It's easier for companies to budget services for the year. It also ensures that they contribute to the maintenance of the project.

What happens if I delete a tier?

If you delete a tier you will be given the option of continuing the recurring contributions for that tier.

These donations will appear under your "custom contributions" Tier.

Members will need to stop recurring payments from their accounts. Here is more information on how to cancel a recurring contribution.

For companies

By subscribing to a support tier, you not only get private time for your team to discuss the open-source project that you depend upon, but you are also helping the collective to maintain it. It's a great way to balance your interests with the interests of the community.

Do I get an invoice?

Yes, you will receive an invoice emitted by the host of the collective (for example, Open Source Collective 501c6).

Can I do a Purchase Order (PO)?

Hosts can work with you to go through your Purchase Order process. Just reach out to us.

What if we never were provided with support?

Please reach out to us and we will work it out.

Edit Settings

To access all settings for your Collective, click the settings button shown in the image below.

Info

The info section of the Collective settings enables you to add and change basic information about your page.

Display name - Display names are public and used wherever this profile appears publicly, like contributions, comments on updates, public info on expenses, etc.

Legal Name (optional) - Legal names are private and used in receipts, tax forms, payment details on expenses and other non-profit contexts. Legal names are only visible to admins.

Short description - This description appears at the top of your collective page. Example 'Test Test Test Collective'

Handle - the unique identifier that directs to your collectives page on Open Collective 'www.opencollective.com/yourcollectiveslug'

Location -

Currency - Your preferred currency

Tags - Identifiers utilised by search to find your collective

Social Links - Link to your website, Git repository and social media

Available links include: Discord, Discource, Facebook, Ghost, Git Repository, Github, GitLab, Instagram, Linkedin, Mastodon, Mattermost, Meetup, Peertube, Pixelfed, Slack, Tiktok, Tumblr, Twitter, Website, Youtube

Profile Page

Show and hide different sections on your collective page.

As an admin, all sections will appear in your view, with invitations to add content.

However, any sections without content will not appear to other users (for example, Updates and About).

Change Logo

To update your logo image, hover over it and click on Edit logo, or simply drag an image file onto the logo area.

Set Main Color

Your main color determines the color of links and buttons, tier cards, and the hero header if no image is set.

Click on Edit main color in the header area to set the color.

Set Cover Image

To change your cover image, click on Edit cover. By clicking on the image, you are able to move it around. You can also zoom in and out as you like. The optimal image size for a cover image is 2736x650.

You can specify an expense policy, which appears on the right of the submit expense form, to give guidance to expense submitters. Making it clear what expenses will be approved and what submitters need to do will save time for you and them.

To update your expense policy, go to your Collective's page, click on the settings button and go to the Policies page.

Examples

Webpack

We distribute the money according to the contributions on Github. There is a minimum threshold. You'll receive a mail when you made enough contributions last month.

Babel

Feel free to expense a public transport for a conference/meetup as a community member, or for things like stickers. For core members, transport/stay for things like TC39 meetings. For other expenses you can ask. Otherwise, we plan on spending most of the money trying to pay people full time.

Limit Who Can Submit and Approve Expenses

At the bottom of the Policies Settings screen, you'll see a set of options that allow you to limit who can submit and approve expenses to your collective:

• Ticking "Admins cannot approve their own expenses" will block admins from approving expenses submitted by themselves, effectively requiring another admin to approve their expenses.

• Ticking "Only allow expenses to be created by Team Members and Financial Contributors (they may invite expenses from other payees)." will limit who can see the "Submit Expense" button.

Fiscal Host Expense Policy

Your Fiscal Host can also set an expense policy. It will appear on the submit expense page, underneath the Collective policy.

Often times, Collective expense policies are focused on what categories of things are allowed as expenses, while the Fiscal Host policy pertains to required documentation, like details on invoices.

If you want to close down your Collective, you can either archive or delete it. Either way, you first need to zero the balance.

Navigate to your Collective's Dashboard > Settings > Advanced.

Delete a Collective

If your Collective does not have any transactions or financial activity, you can delete it. Deleting a Collective will remove its data, including memberships, payment methods, etc.

Archive a Collective

If your Collective has transactions, you can archive it instead of deleting. This will mark the Collective as inactive and prevent any new donations. If you want to re-activate your collective at a later stage, please follow the same steps shown below and find an updated button to unarchive the collective). Note that archiving a Collective will also cancel any recurring contributions and expenses.

There are multiple ways to export your collectives data. Download your contributor data, Transactions information and delve into your export settings.

Contributor Information

Navigate to your collective's Dashboard -> Contributors.

Click on the Export CSV button in top right hand corner.

The CSV export contains:

• Contributor Profile URL

• Contributor Name

• Contributor Type (Individual or Company)

• Total Amount Contributed

• Currency

• Active Recurring Contribution

• Recurring Contribution Tier

• Recurring Contribution Amount

• Recurring Contribution Frequency

• First Contribution Date

• Latest Contribution Date

• Email

• Website

Exporting Transactions

Head to the budget section on your collective page. Click the Transactions tab

2. Click View all Transactions

3. Apply any filters to the CSV export.

For example select expenses in the Kind type to export a CSV with your expense information.

4. Download CSV on the right

Export Settings

Navigate to your collective's dashboard -> Settings -> Export.

On this page, you can export your data into:

• Contributor data CSV Export

• JSON Export

• Widgets

• Badges

• Contributors images

Export Contributors CSV

Download a file of all of your contributors, with these fields:

• Member ID

• Date Created

• User Type (User or Organisation)

• Role (Admin, Host, Backer, Follower)

• Tier

• Active Recurring Contribution

• Total Amount Donated

• Currency

• Lastest Transaction Date

• Lastest Transaction Amount

• User Profile URL

• Name

• Company

• Description

• Image

• Email

• Newsletter Opt in

• Twitter

• Github

• Website

Export JSON

Export your data to integrate with other applications.

Options:

• All members (contributors of all types)

• Only users (individuals)

• Only organizations

Parameters:

• limit: number of members to return

• offset: number of members to skip (for paging)

• TierId: only return the members that belong to this TierId. You can find the TierId as part of the URL after selecting a tier on your collective pag

Widget

Export an HTML script to use on your website, showing your financial contributors.

Export images

Badge

Create an SVG showing the number of financial contributors of your Collective. By updating the text in the URL, you can change the label and color.

Code:

https://opencollective.com/collective/tiers/backers/badge.svg?label=Backers&color=brightgreen

Result:

Contributor image

Create an SVG showing the icons of your financial contributors.

There are a range of options:

Code:

<object type="image/svg+xml" data="https://opencollective.com/collective/tiers/backers.svg?avatarHeight=36&width=600"></object>

Result:

Before changing hosts or closing a Collective, the balance must be at zero.

You can move money out of your Collective in several ways:

• Submitting expenses to withdraw funds.

• Donating to another Collective in the same fiscal host.

• Giving the remaining balance to your Fiscal Host. You can access that option by navigating to your Collective's Dasboard > Settings > Advanced.

Leftover Balance

Let the Payee cover the fees

When emptying the balance for a collective, you have the option of charging the payment processor fees on the payee which will guarantee that 100% of the collective's balance will go out. This option is only available for bank transfers for hosts that support Transferwise at the moment.

When these conditions are met, the host admins will see a checkbox on the Pay expense modal:

Dealing with small leftovers

When it's not possible to use the feature previously described, you may sometimes end up with a small amount left behind if you try to withdraw 100% of your balance. This is usually caused by fees being hard to predict exactly.

If this happens, go to your Collective's page, click on the gear icon next to your logo, head to Advanced and use the Empty Balance button to transfer the remaining funds to your Fiscal Host.

Webhooks (generic, Slack, Discord)

Go to your settings, click on "Webhooks" then select the type and enter the URL for your webhook. The system will automatically detect Slack or Discord's slack-compatible webhook URLs and will adapt the payloads for them.

See this link to learn how to create a Slack webhook, or this link to learn how to create a Discord webhook.

While creating the webhook, you'll be able (in some cases) to preview the payload by clicking on the Info icon next to the activity name:

Other chat integrations (Mattermost, Gitter)

For Mattermost or Gitter, first set up a webhook as described above, and then send it to us and we'll add the hook to our platform.

Twitter Integration

Connect your Twitter to automatically thank new supporters who contribute to your Collective! To do so, go to your Collective page, click on the gear icon, and head to the Connected Accounts page.

Organizations and collectives can opt-in to enforce 2FA for all their admins. Any attempt at triggering admin operations or visiting the admin pages will be blocked until the admins enable 2FA on their profiles. Projects and events inherit the 2FA settings from their parents.

How to enforce 2FA for all admins

1. Click on the user menu

2. Click on the settings icon next to the profile you want to enable "Enforce 2FA" for

3. Click on "Security"

4. Check "All admins must have two-factor authentication"

5. Click on Save

When visiting admin pages without 2FA, admins will be prompted to enable it

Roles

Admins have full permissions to change settings, approve expenses, and make financial contributions from the budget balance.

Core contributors show up in the Team section of your page and can create events, but can't change settings or approve expenses.

Accountants can access financial information, such as receipts, invoices, and reports. They can't change settings or approve expenses.

Adding, Editing and Removing team members

1. Go to your Collective page and click the gear next to your Collective logo.

2. Head to the Team tab. Here you can add, remove, or change people and roles.

3. Click the Invite Team Member button

4. This will then bring up a form in which you can search or invite a new user. Once you are done, click on Save at the bottom of the page.

5. Users will receive an invite to join the Collective. They will not be displayed publicly until this invitation is accepted. You will then see the new user that you have invited as pending until the invitation is accepted.

6. To edit a Team Member click the edit (pencil) button. This will allow you to edit the user's permissions and remove a user if you wish.

Re-send email invitations

If someone indicates that they didn't receive an invitation email, the first thing to do is for them to search for the keywords "Invitation to join" in the target inbox, including in the spam folder. If they still can't find them, the easiest way to re-trigger the emails is:

1. Go to the settings page of the Collective > Core contributors section

2. Remove the concerned users

3. Click on Save

4. ​Click on "Add core contributor" and add them again (you should be able to search by pasting user emails in the search box)