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raising money to support the Microsolidarity commons & deciding together how we spend it |
If you want to contribute money to the network, there are two places you can donate:
- You can send Euros to our Open Collective account, fiscally hosted by Open Collective Europe Foundation (a non-profit organization based in Belgium).
- You can send US Dollars or Crypto to our Every.org account (hosted by a non-profit organization based in the US). Donations here are tax-deductible under the US IRS 501(c)3 tax code.
Supporting us on Open Collective with at least €3 per month will give you access to the monthly members-only calls where you can meet other practitioners.
Our intention to grow a common fund that can be used for anything that supports the network. Here's some of our fundraising goals:
- to pay the facilitators for organising & hosting our monthly calls
- to provide scholarships to make paid events more accessible
- to produce media that supports the network & educates the wider public (e.g. editing the podcast, writing a book, making a Netflix series...)
- to pay for a "community coach" who can support a cohort of many microsolidarity community hosts
- to buy a retreat centre where communities can go for trainings & retreats.
Since October 2022, the network has been fiscally hosted by Open Collective. Since that time, all paid Microsolidarity events have contributed at least 10% of profit back to the commons.
You can see all transactions on our public page. The data are summarised here for ease of reading:
The current balance is €7,174.89. After we pay the staff for the two online courses in 2024-Q4 the balance will be €4,947.98.
Here’s the financial performance of all events to date:
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Members Contributions to our Open Collective EU account total €5,174.02 to date. We receive about €215/month in recurring donations from 56 paying members.
We received $5000 to make the Denver 2022 retreat more accessible. We received another $5000 at the end of 2023, which we used to offset the costs to make the Network Retreat 2024 and US Summer Camp 2024.
We pay €100/month to Jocelyn Ames to facilitate the Monthly Member Calls (since July 2022). We pay about €180/year for Zoom.
Prior to October 2022, Richard Bartlett & Nati Lombardo used their company The Hum as the legal & financial vehicle for running Microsolidarity events. For full transparency, the financial performance of the 6 paid events that we ran through The Hum between May 2020 and Oct 2022 is included in the data on this page.
From Oct 2022 to Sep 2024 we had another Open Collective account, hosted in the US. This is now shut down. Here’s the summary of transactions:
- Regular contributions: $378.88
- Lump-sum donation: $5000
- Fees: $439.57
- Expenses: $4807.47
- $2,500.00 for scholarships for the US Summer Camp 2024
- $1,363.79 for food for Network Retreat Spain 2024
- $943.68 for flights to Network Retreat Spain 2024
The network is currently governed informally, with Richard Bartlett playing the role of "benevolent dictator". As we start to collect common resources, it seems natural that decision-making power should be shared with more people. Here's a proposed approach to get us started in that direction:
- all paid events that generate a surplus should contribute at least 10% to the common fund
- anyone who has contributed money to the network is entitled to have a say about how the common fund is governed
- "having a say" means you can make proposals for how we spend the collective money, and share your advice on other people's proposals
- final decisions are made by the administrators of the two Open Collective pages (Jonas Gröner, Jocelyn Ames, Sara Bajor, Michal Korzonek, Richard Bartlett)
- anyone can become an OC admin, by the approval of the existing admins
- for the time being, Richard Bartlett holds veto power, as a backstop in case of emergencies (e.g. irreconcilable conflict)