Welcome

We are on a mission to help collaborative groups collect and spend money transparently.

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Open Collective is an online funding platform for open and transparent communities. We provide the tools to raise and share your finances in full transparency.

This is the place to find all help and documentation related to Open Collective. It's a work in progress, so please feel free to give us feedback!

To suggest changes, click the GitHub icon on any docs page and make a pull request. If you're not sure how to do that, read our step-by-step guide.

If you can't find the answer you're looking for, contact us at [email protected] or on our Slack.

Find your way to the right page

Reading more about our community

Read our Terminology page to know more about all key members of our community:

{% page-ref page="about/terminology.md" %}

Using our search bar

Use the search bar on the top right to search for specific words or phrases:

Browsing sections

Want to know more about Open Collective? Read our About section:

{% page-ref page="about/introduction.md" %}

Interested in reading more about Open Collective's features? Go to our Product section:

{% page-ref page="product/product.md" %}

Are you looking for information on how to start or maintain a Collective? Head to our Collectives section:

{% page-ref page="collectives/collectives.md" %}

Would you like to financially contribute to Collective as an Individual or an Organization? Read our Financial Contributors section:

{% page-ref page="financial-contributors/financial-contributors.md" %}

Do you want to know more about how to get paid in our platform? Check out Expenses & Getting Paid section:

{% page-ref page="expenses-and-getting-paid/expenses.md" %}

Thinking about hosting Collectives? Go to our Fiscal Hosts section:

{% page-ref page="fiscal-hosts/fiscal-hosts.md" %}

Overall FAQ

See links for more details. Each chapter heading in the docs has its own more specific FAQ.

What’s an Open Collective?

An Open Collective is a place for communities to collect and disburse money transparently.

Who is Open Collective for?

Open Collective is great for collaborative groups, like meetups, open source projects, and more—and for the those who want to support them.

How is it different from other platforms?

Open Collective is different. It's fully transparent (you can see where money comes from and where it goes), and designed for ongoing communities, not individual creators or one-off campaigns.

How much does it cost?

Pricing is based on a small percentage of funds raised through the platform, 5%-10% depending on your Fiscal Host.

Does it work in my country?

People can contribute from anywhere by credit card, with donations denominated in the currency of the Fiscal Host. Payouts work everywhere our payment providers, Stripe and PayPal, serve.

Can I get a receipt for my donations?

Yes! One main purpose of Open Collective is to provide unincorporated projects the legal and financial structures to provide people receipts and invoices.

Where can I learn more?

You've come to the right place! These docs explain the whole platform in detail.

How can I contact you?

Email [email protected] or join our Slack!

How can I contribute?

We are an open source project and run as an Open Collective ourselves. You can contribute money, code or translations. And we'd really love it if you started your own Collective and contributed by growing the community!

For more info about how you can contribute to Open Collective, check the contributing page.