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Documentation

Interested in charity fundholding? Check out the Gift Collective help docs, too.

How is this different to regular crowdfunding?
  1. Transparent—everyone can see where the money comes from and where it goes.

  2. Collective & Ongoing—designed for collaborative communities to be funded over time, not one-off campaigns or tied to a single individual.

  3. Fundholding (a.k.a. fiscal sponsorship or auspicing)—instead of simply transferring you the funds, we hold them in our bank account and pay them out as you go, taking care of painful stuff like taxes, accounting, liability, and payment processing, so you don't have to. We offer charity fundholding as well, to help you meet philanthropic grant requirements and provide donation tax credits.

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Who is this for?

A lot of groups are already using Open Collective around the world, like meetups, open source software projects, community initiatives, grassroots citizen movements, mutual aid groups, sector or interest-based coalitions, and projects receiving grants. What they have in common is being collectively organised, valuing transparency, and needing to get up and running quickly and easily without getting bogged down in paperwork and admin. But Aotearoa is unique, and Open Collective NZ is new, so who knows what will emerge!

 
What do I get if I sign up?

Essentially two things: 

  1. A fundholder, a legal entity with a bank account, through which you can interact with the world, so you don't need to manage your Collective's funds personally or incorporate a new legal entity. (Learn more about fiscal hosting).

  2. A tech platform to help your Collective thrive, with features like crowdfunding, transparent budget tracking, and community engagement tools. (Learn more about the software).

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How can you help me?
  • Provide invoices and receipts to your contributors, including donation tax receipts if your project is charitable.

  • Organise paying people who work on your project and reimbursing project expenses.

  • Give you an instant webpage to tell your story, engage your community, and fundraise.

  • Engage with grant applications as the fundholder and assist you with the process.

  • Register on supplier and vendor systems so companies can support you.

  • Provide documentation like bank account verification, company registration info, GST number, etc.

  • Sign contracts with vendors, venues, contractors or other third parties your project wants to engage.

  • Any other requests you have, to best of our ability!

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What's with all these similarly named 'Collective' things?

Open Collective Inc is an international company that makes a software platform many entities around the world use to provide crowdfunding and fundholding services. Open Collective NZ (OCNZ) is an independent kiwi-owned company created to bring this service to Aotearoa. The relationship between the kiwi ventures and Open Collective Inc is like that of any software vendor and customer (not a parent company or owner). If you join, your project, initiative, or community will become a Collective, with its own page on the platform to fundraise and manage your budget.

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How much does it cost?

Collectives pay a percentage of funds raised to help cover the costs of providing our services, like admin, user support, legal, accounting, and the software platform. Open Collective NZ Ltd have a 5% fee. We have a transparent budgets (see here). For credit card transactions, there's also a 2.9% payment processor charge from Stripe. This doesn't apply to bank transfer payments.

 

How do the fees stack up to the competition?

The standard fee for crowdfunding is 5-7% (plus credit card processing fees), but they don't provide fundholding. The standard fee for fundholding is ~10% (it varies a lot), but they don't provide crowdfunding or a tech platform. So we think our prices are pretty sweet!

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Are you a not-for-profit?

OCNZ is a social enterprise incorporated as a limited company, but its legal terms specify that Collective funds can never become company profit and must be donated to charity if not used by the Collective who raised them. Any potential profit derives only from OCNZ's 5% fee for services. Everything about our budget is transparent, too!

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What's the application process?

Applications are currently closed. 

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Do I need to charge GST on funds I raise?

It depends. Unconditional donations—where nothing specific is given in return—do not attract GST. Conditional payments—where the buyer gets something in return, like a product, service, or event ticket—may attract GST. The Open Collective platform is set up for both scenarios.

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Can I get a refund of my contribution?

If you set up a recurring contribution to a Collective (e.g. $10/mo) you can cancel this any time. If there was a mistake (e.g. you typed an extra zero), or it was made fraudulently (e.g. unauthorised use of your credit card), it can always be refunded.  For Collectives under OCNZ, we can also refund in cases of a project being cancelled, or if you simply change your mind, as long as the funds have not yet been spent by the Collective.

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Can I use my own bank account to hold my Collective's funds?

Yes, but not through us, as we provide a fundholding service. You can sign up directly with Open Collective and be your own fundholder.

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I still have questions!

Feel free to get in touch.

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