Can the hledger project's open collective / fiscal hosting setup be improved ?

[simonmichael]

https://hledger.org/sponsor.html describes a number of ways to contribute funding to the hledger project. One of these is https://opencollective.com/hledger , which also provides a public ledger and a supervised withdrawal process and added trust and visibility. I'm very happy with it overall, but there have always been costs also, which are not negligible. This issue is to share my thoughts on the current status and discuss whether/how to improve it.

Open Collective / Open Source Collective pros and cons

Note these distinct "open collective" entities:

• OC = Open Collective, the platform
• OSC = Open Source Collective, our fiscal host on the OC platform

It's possible to use the OC platform with a different fiscal host, or with ourself as fiscal host.

OC platform benefits

• a transparent dedicated account for "hledger project funds", on a trusted well-known platform
• a public web UI for the ledger, contributors, reports etc.
• a standard, supervised withdrawal/reimbursement process
• an additional, prominent channel for donations, supporting multiple payment methods: credit card, US bank debit, apple pay, paypal

OC platform costs

• high visibility, perhaps more than needed; loss of privacy for donors
• standard processor fees charged for most payment methods
• OC itself is funded by a percentage of fiscal host fees; we don't pay it directly

OSC fiscal host benefits

• they take responsibility for preserving/accounting for project funds
• convenient, trustworthy; used by other FOSS projects
• fees paid to OSC benefit open source software in general ?

OSC fiscal host costs

• we pay a 10% fee to OSC on every donation, in addition to processor fees. People often make small recurring donations that are mostly wasted.
• funds held with OSC earn no interest (for us), and we have no control over where they are invested.
• high friction for simple, routine actions. Eg, reimbursing myself for a 4.99 paypal fee took multiple rounds of explanation, and weeks instead of minutes.
• uncertainty about ownership: legally there's no hledger organisation, and the "hledger project funds" are actually Simon's. The appearance/involvement of a separate entity can create confusion. (For me too. Will OSC release my funds when I want to use them ?)
• accounting and managing money is our strength, we don't necessarily need to pay someone else for it.

Ideas for alternate setups / actions ?

• Keep using the current setup, but reduce the balance held with OSC and keep it below a certain level.
• Keep using OC, but seek another fiscal host with lower fees/friction ? Not much benefit.
• Keep using OC, but act as our own fiscal host; Simon would manage the funds. More speed and investment capability. The ledger remains public.
• Stop using OC, but keep publishing the public ledger by other means (hledger reports etc). More dogfooding, more control. We'd lose the OC donation channel.
• Stop using OC, stop managing a public ledger and "project funds", or just provide summary reports. Less transparency, less complexity, less work; all donation channels are handled the same way.
• ...

[simonmichael]

After more research, I realised had a wrong understanding. Funds in the hledger open collective actually aren't owned by me, but by the Open Source Collective (our fiscal host). (And aren't taxable income until paid out.)

So I think this will be the plan:

• Steer small donors towards Github Sponsors/Liberapay/Paypal, avoiding OSC's 10% fiscal host fee.

• Keep OC+OSC as a donation channel for corporate donors, matching programs, grants etc. OSC's 10% fee and withdrawal friction are essentially the price of being able to receive funds via a 501(c)(6) nonprofit with corporate-friendly procedures and oversight.

• Update docs to reflect that funds in the hledger opencollective are owned and disbursed by OSC.

• Reduce the balance held with OSC, eg to 1 or 2k, to reduce (a) investment losses and (b) risk of loss or delay from host wind-down, policy changes, disputes etc.

[thomascwells]

This seems like a good plan! Maintaining tax benefits for large donors is probably worth it. Having a presence and some level of transparency (even if incomplete) on OC is probably worth it for credibility and "advertising". I've used OC in the past and know the extra hassle of the record keeping.

I'm not sure how librepay or github sponsors work, but certain kinds of transfers are nearly-free on Stripe and the ones that aren't are relatively low cost.