Having a presence in social impact/open source directories associated with funding (eg.: Open Collective, Goodmarket.global, etc)?

International Processes
1

This topic is intended to be a pre-discussion for fundraising circle meeting (Sep 2021). It was suggest by @lauriewayne1 (on Slack channel here). I just edited a bit.

Should we have a presence in social impact/open source directories that are also associated with funding (eg.: Open Collective, Goodmarket.global, etc)
  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

  • if Yes - should we have a strategy on how to engage with these? make sure we have a presence in these sites and to keep listings current would be useful (and decide if presence on these sites would best be done as a global org, as individual instances, or both)
  • if No - would you have another proposal to address this aspect?

(some previous discussion on raising funds Open Collective I found here)

2

There this type of platform that I am not sure I would consider in the same category as the above two but though they could be relevant.
https://www.ethex.org.uk/

3

OMG a poll what a brilliant idea!!! :raised_hands:

1 Like
4

From what I know about these platforms, being listed is not enough. This is something we need to facilitate. So we need people assigned to facilitating those spaces. What about using the meeting to see if 2 people are willing to work on this?

Personally I won’t be able to work on this and work on fundraising proposals for example, so maybe we should agree on priorities?

Also I’ve noted that some previous attempt at Open Collective were made:

I don’t know if anyone from the community today still has access to this account…

Other local OFN page :

@lauriewayne1 you knew there was 2 pages for US? Open Food Network USA - Open Collective and https://opencollective.com/ofnusa

https://opencollective.com/openfoodfrance => I didn’t even know about this one… :woman_facepalming:

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5

Yes, @Rachel I knew there are two - one is supposed to be a user account and one is supposed to be a “collective” account which can accept donations and has been authorized as a fiscal host. We are slowly transitioning the fiscal aspects of our org from one platform to another. It should be worked out any year now, LOL. When we get our act together we can offer no-fee fiscal hosting to other instances but I barely trust us with our own money at this point! (I mean I do trust us, but just barely!)

Our collective page is https://opencollective.com/ofnusa . I imagine it will be tuned up within the month (possibly wishful thinking).

6

@Rachel, good points:

  • I believe we should have a presence in these platforms as a global network (the one in Ireland is being managed closely… don’t know about the others)
  • I see that we do need to decide how we are going to manage this… Your suggestion of having 2 people allocated to do it, seems reasonable seeing the amount of platforms that are out there and the time needed to keep them updated.
  • we need to find out who has access to that initial Open Collective page (can’t be left like this without oversight)

are there any other platforms out there you know of? Maybe you could recommend?

I guess seeing the amount of time we currently have available maybe we should focus on 1 or 2 platforms, rather then spread broader.

7

Yes. If you’re a nonprofit or open source project, you can use those platforms to reach out to potential funders. They are also useful for building an audience and getting recognition from your peers.