How to apply

Before you apply:

1. Read through this documentation and FAQs and review the Terms of Cooperation (a.k.a. our Terms and Conditions - when you submit your application, you will tick a box to agree to these. This is our Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement.)

2. Ensure that you are eligible for fiscal hosting with OC Europe and are familiar with the Open Collective Community Guidelines

3. Be familiar with the Restrictions & Limitations of our program

4. Have at least 2 community members ready to add as admins. Admins have full permissions to change settings, approve expenses, and make financial contributions from the budget balance of your initiative. Applications with less than 2 admins will not be accepted.

💡 As a reminder:

• You retain ownership of all your initiative's intellectual property.

• If you want to enter into an agreement with anyone else, such as a contract with a vendor or providing a specific service to a sponsor, you need to do it in your own personal name.

• We will hold and manage funds on behalf of your initiative and we won't use them for anything else.

• Your initiative cannot have outside bank accounts. All funds must be held in your Open Collective account in order to accurately represent your budget/activities.

• Once funds enter into a Belgian NPO, they must remain in the Belgian NPO sphere. This means if your initiative closes down, your funds cannot be returned, and can either be spent on project expenses or must be transferred to another NPO - perhaps another OC Europe-hosted initiative!

The Application

Applying to be hosted by Open Collective Europe takes only minutes!

The application will have you choose whether you are starting a new collective or applying with an existing one. If you have never used the Open Collective platform before, you will select 'Create New Collective' where you will be guided through the application and account creation: We'll provide you with some more information about being hosted by Open Collective Europe and ask you to accept our Terms of Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement.

When you are ready, you can go to our profile and click Apply! Fill out the application questions, accept the Open Collective platform terms of service, and submit. 💡 Remember to add at least 2 community members to your team!

Everything you enter into the application will be editable later on, so don't worry about making it perfect.

❓ If we have questions about your application, we may reach out to you to schedule a chat or request additional materials.

🚫 If your application is rejected, you will be informed as to why. You are welcome to reapply if adjustments are made to align with our requirements. We try to respond to applications within two business days.

✅ If your initiative is accepted, congratulations! Once you have set up your initiative’s Open Collective page, you can begin accepting contributions (donations). We will reach out to notify you of your acceptance.

Be sure to check your Spam folder for correspondence from OC Europe. Sometimes our emails end up in there.

Transitioning to Open Collective

If you are transitioning from another fiscal host that uses the Open Collective platform, the process is relatively simple. If your initiative is currently with another organization that does not use Open Collective, the process will depend on that organization’s requirements, but in a nutshell they can transfer your money over and you can get up and running with OC Europe.

Please be sure to communicate your plans to both OC Europe and your old fiscal host before your application to ensure a smooth transition. Once you have tied up any loose ends with your current host, they can transfer the funds to us electronically. We can issue an invoice to them and sign agreements if needed.

All funds for your initiative must be transferred to Open Collective Europe, since initiatives may not hold funds for the project in any other bank account while hosted by OC Europe. Our normal fees apply to funds transferred in.