Our Services & Benefits

What Open Source Collective offers to hosted member projects and open source funders.

For Open Source Projects and Communities

We take care of the paperwork, payments, and overhead so you can focus on maintaining your project and your community.

Fiscal Hosting

OSC provides the legal and financial framework for open source projects that do not have their own formal legal status. OSC handles the banking, legal compliance, taxes, and bookkeeping so the project can focus on its core work. This means the legal, financial, and compliance risks associated with that money rest with OSC, not with your personal bank account.

Transparent Fundraising and Expenses

Every hosted project gets its own public page on Open Collective. Donors and community see exactly what's been raised and how it's being spent in real time. Use those funds for project costs (servers, bug bounties, maintainer payments, conference travel) by submitting an expense.

Virtual Cards

Use the money directly from your balance without waiting on a reimbursement. You can get a card tied directly to the project's balance, so spending happens in real time and shows up in the ledger immediately. Cards can be issued, capped, or shut off per project, so there's a spending control in place without anyone needing to share a physical card.

Contracts, Invoices, and Legal Agreements

Signing a contract, accepting a grant, or sending an invoice usually requires a legal entity. OSC signs and reviews these on the project's behalf, so a maintainer can say yes to a conference sponsorship or a grant with legal terms attached without needing to create a legal entity first.

Employment, Payroll, and Benefits

We'll draft the contractor agreement so you can pay contributors properly. If the project can support it, we can put someone on full-time payroll with benefits, so maintaining stops being a side project and can become an actual job.

Trademark Registration and Holding

OSC will help you file for and hold the trademark on the project's behalf, so there's a legal owner of record and someone with standing to act if a company starts using your name without permission. It also means the mark isn't tied to any one maintainer, so it doesn't disappear if that person steps away from the project.

Domain Transfers and Registration

Project domains usually end up registered to whoever happened to buy one first. If that person forgets to renew, loses access, or moves on, the project can lose its own domain. We can handle registration for you, or you can transfer your existing domains to OSC, so it's not reliant on one person's memory or credit card.

Apply for Grants

We receive grant funding on your project's behalf, including acting as a subawardee for NSF grants, and help with the paperwork along the way.

Conference Support

We help maintainers attend conferences and support organizers in hosting their own events.

A Collective Voice and Representation

We advocate for open source projects and promote sustainability in the ecosystem on your behalf.

Networking and Peer Support

With a network of over 2,500 hosted projects, we provide a built-in network that offers connections and support from the open source community.

---

For Open Source Donors and Funders

Our goal is to make it easy to fund the projects you care about. Whether you're giving back to a single project or managing financial contributions across multiple dependencies, here's how OSC helps you contribute:

Centralized Funding Management

Streamline your contributions by working with OSC as a single supplier for multiple open source projects.

Flexible Funding Options

Contribute using a method that works best for you or your organization, including credit card, PayPal, bank transfer, invoicing, or a dedicated Fund in your organization's name.

Simplified Invoicing

Consolidate payments — one invoice can support multiple projects — to reduce administrative overhead

Full Financial Transparency

Track your contributions in real time through the Open Collective platform, ensuring clear reporting and accountability.

Custom Financial Workflows

Do you need a tailored funding approach for your organization? We can develop custom workflows that can align with your organization's accounting, legal, and compliance requirements.