Making Financial Contributions (Sponsoring)

Contributions to Collectives hosted by the Open Source Collective are not tax-deductible, as we are a 501(c)(6) nonprofit, not a charity 501(c)(3).

How to give

There are many ways you (or your company) can support open source projects hosted by Open Source Collective:

On behalf of our collectives, thank you for your support! We value all of our contributors. If there is anything you need as a donor, please reach out.

Credit Card, PayPal, or Bank Transfer

To contribute to an initiative online on the Open Collective platform via Credit Card, PayPal, or Bank Transfer (a.k.a. ACH or wire transfer), please see this overview of the process.

Once you choose to contribute from the collective’s profile, our platform will guide you through the rest of the process, including choosing between credit card, PayPal, and electronic bank transfer via ACH (US banks only) or wire.

The fastest way to have access to funds is through Card/PayPal donations made directly on the Open Collective Platform.

Bank transfers (e.g. ACH, wire) are done manually - this means it takes the funds a couple of days to clear due to bank processing times. Once the funds are cleared by the bank, the allocation of the funds requires additional actions from OSC. It is important to allow for a few days (minimum 3~5 business days) when awaiting donations made via bank transfer.

Bank Transfers

If you select to make a contribution via bank transfer, you will automatically be given bank transfer instructions, on-screen and by email, along with a unique reference ID code.

You must include the unique ID code as a reference with your bank transfer, so we can match up the transaction.

Once the money has arrived, we will credit the amount to the initiative’s balance and you will automatically receive a receipt.‌

When you arrange the transfer, if you have the option of sending an email notification for the transaction, please use our email.

Invoicing (For Companies and Institutions)

Sometimes companies need to receive an invoice before they can make a financial contribution. This is primarily done only for amounts >$1000. If a potential donor cannot donate directly through the project's Open Collective page and needs an invoice, please contact us at hello@oscollective.org. We handle invoice creation using Quickbooks.

In your email, please include:

  • Link to Collective's page

  • Donor company name and email address

  • Preferred date for the invoice, if if should be issued in the future

  • Description of the service the project is providing

  • Donation amount, in USD

  • Any specific Purchase Order (PO) number that needs to be on the invoice

  • Any other specific instructions

Unless a different agreement is made, our standard payment term for invoices is 30 days.

After the invoice is paid, it typically takes a few days for the payment to appear. As soon as our team confirms the payment has been received, we will direct the funds to your collective.

Crypto

On May 19, 2023, we disabled our automated crypto donation functionality because we received a donation from a sanctioned country. You can read the announcement here. Because of this incident,

  • We are changing our donation procedures and collecting personal information from the person making the crypto donation to follow KYC and AML procedures.

  • We will only accept crypto donations in amounts equal to or over $2,500.

If you want to donate or accept a crypto donation, we will accept it on your behalf, convert it to fiat (USD), and attribute the balance to a hosted collective.

To initiate this process, please fill in this form with the donor's information (including full legal name, place of birth, date of birth, and current address), and we will reach out regarding the next steps.

Giving Anonymously

If you would like your contribution to be partially or fully anonymous, see our incognito and guest contributions documentation.

Secure Contributions

Open Source Collective doesn't store donor credit card numbers on our servers. Instead, we partner with Stripe, a secure solution that is widely adopted by the industry, to process one-time and recurring contributions.

Donations By Check

Open Source Collective does not accept check donations.

Fees

Open Source Collective charges our hosted Collectives a fixed 10% fee on all contributions received in return for our fiscal hosting services.

Read more about our fees.

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