Managing funds is easy when you’re a large project owned by an incorporated entity with accountants at your disposal, or when you’re a small project run by one person who accepts and uses all donations. When you’re in between, however, it can be difficult to handle. If you’re a project with a few regular contributors but no bank account, who handles the money? For many projects the answer is a fiscal host.
Fiscal hosts accept donations on behalf of a smaller organization and then earmark the donations for that smaller groups use. This way the larger organization handles taxes and accounting and the smaller group doesn’t have to incorporate or pay lots of money for accountants.
Many fiscal hosts exist for software projects, some focused on particular areas of the software world that they want to see developed. Many general software focused hosts such as the Software Freedom Conservancy and the Open Source Collective have requirements that put them out of the reach of most small XMPP related projects. Until now no fiscal host has existed specifically to nurture and grow new XMPP related projects.
Today the XSF is announcing that it will change this by acting as a fiscal host for XMPP related projects. A new organization has been created on Open Collective and will be using their platform to accept donations on behalf of hosted projects. Funds are currently handled in USD (since the XSF is based in the U.S.) but projects from all over the world are welcome to apply! We can’t wait to see what small XMPP projects are able to do once they are given the tools they need to raise money under the umbrella of a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization like the XSF!
The new terms of fiscal sponsorship can be found on the website, and you can apply for sponsorship by creating a collective for your project on Open Collective, then navigating to the XMPP organization and clicking “Apply”. This will present you with a form where you can enter the required information:
For more information about fiscal hosts, see the Open Collective Fiscal Hosts FAQ.
If you run an XMPP related open source project or organization and think you could benefit from a fiscal host to help you manage and distribute funds, consider applying!
