@mattnoyes My impression from the conversation thus-far is little to nothing would change from the subscriber-end.

Hi @erikmoeller5 @matthewcropp As far as I'm aware having discussed this with Pia at OC, the migration is transparent as far as the end-user members/supporters are concerned. As Matt says, it's largely an 'under the hood' change. Any funds in the host's bank account will need to be manually transferred to the new host's account, and OC are happy to assist in that (they will already have our bank account details on record) so the people supporting social.coop don't need to do anything.

Great. I just wrote to Alanna at OC about how the process works. Based on that, I'll make a formal proposal to the working group, and then the main group.

Okay, I just got a response from Alanna at Open Collective about how this process works:

To switch hosts, you need to bring your Collective to $0 balance, and then it's easy. You go to 'edit collective' > fiscal host > remove your current host > add platform6 > host admin approves > done.

You can invoice out the whole amount to actually pay people/expenses, or just get someone to hold the funds and then put them back into the Collective when you've switched over. We should be able to do that with zero fees (except payment processor fees). If the Platform6 host admin isn't sure how to do any of this, put them in touch with me.

All your members' recurring subscriptions will be unaffected and they don't need to take any action.

Seems like the hard part is figuring out someone to hold the funds during the process. I just asked Alanna about details of fees for that, if OC or P6 were to manage the process.

@graham2 is P6 on board for moving forward on this?

Absolutely.
We have a board meeting later today where I can re-confirm our desire to actively support this move, and also consider any options for how to we might be able to facilitate moving the funds at lowest cost.

More from Alanna:

Normally, we get someone from the Collective to hold the funds, and we aren't usually able to transfer directly from host to host as it can cause a bit of an admin headache. If you need to transfer the funds direct to the new host, as opposed to using them up on expenses as a way to zero out the balance or having an individual hold them and then put them back, I can look into what the options are.

For payment processor fees, if the transfer is within the US and we do a manual payment, Paypal won't charge fees. But Platform6 in UK based, meaning an international transfer. In that case, we can transfer using bank wire, Paypal, Payoneer, or Transferwise, and they all have different fees.

Open Collective doesn't charge any platform fees for money going out. After changing hosts, if you put funds back in through the front door (via credit card) the 5% platform fee + stripe fees will be applied automatically. If you do a manual transfer (any way other than credit card), whether it's us sending the funds or you holding and transferring them to Platform6, it's up to them whether they charge a fee on the transaction.

Thanks, @graham2, let us know how it goes. It seems like the main issue is the international wire transfer. Have a good board meeting!

Hi again. Yes, moving the funds that are sitting in the OC host account seems to be the main sticking point. One option that we thought might work on this is that at an agreed point in time Platform 6 could submit an invoice to social.coop for the balance in your account. Upon approval those funds could then be paid to the Platform 6 Paypal account, and from there we could easily move that money into our bank account. Paypal would charge a fee for that transaction of course, and there would be some cost for the conversion from USD to GBP, but this might be the simplest route.
Although Alanna seems to be suggesting (not sure) that we could go down this route but not use Paypal and OC could make the transfer manually using Transferwise or similar, which is probably cheaper.

The alternative is that perhaps one of your core contributors claims the money as an expense. It would still then be paid out via Paypal, so they still take their slice, and the money is then moved into a US bank account, from where you then need to move it to our UK account. I don't know what US banks charge for international transfers. Some countries have really low fees on this type of stuff, while others can be quite costly. But that route feels relatively more expensive. Again, I'm unclear as to whether Alanna is offering to make a manual payment or not.

Transferwise, https://transferwise.com/ - which I've used to send euros to suppliers in the eurozone, is pretty good and quite low cost. Their website suggests that moving $6500 (which is roughly what OC shows as your current balance) to a GBP account will cost $30.51 and they suggest that this is up to $213 cheaper than the average bank.

We wouldn't charge any fees for facilitating any of this on the assumption we don't meet any costs in the process (it is possible that our bank might want to charge a fee, but I'll check that out) and if the funds are paid directly into our account rather than through the OC front door there wouldn't be any Stripe fees at that point.
Hope this helps.
The whole thing makes crypto look increasingly attractive!

Okay, it sounds like the Transferwise approach is probably best. So in my proposal I'll say that the total cost of the transfer would be under $50, probably close to $30. Does that sound correct to you? Just want to confirm before I draft the proposal.

On the assumption that you can get the funds into Transferwise (i.e.either direct from OC's account or from one of your core team's accounts) at no cost to you, then it sounds do-able.

To @mattnoyes' comment, @ntnsndr is this vote a "feedback" round prior to putting it forward for binding adoption? In that case, check poll makes sense, though wording could be more clear.

That's right, Matt. I just added some additional language to the proposal for clarity.

So, this is like asking "any objections?"
Would it make sense to propose edits directly on the doc?

The idea is that people could propose edits in the comment field of the proposal. Objections, suggestions, whatever. It's just an informal way of garnering input without making it look like a formal proposal at this stage. Do you have any suggestions?

Made a couple suggested edits on the doc. Thanks for moving this forward.

@graham2 thanks for this feedback. I'm simply trying to reflect the legal reality in clear fashion. Somebody must hold liability for Social.coop activities—either Social.coop members individually or the legal entity that acts as a container for those activities. There are also legal limits on what our options are.

Here are some examples of fiscal sponsorship agreements among nonprofits. Do you know of UK equivalents?

I just adjusted the draft to address @graham2's concerns about liability and @mattnoyes's edit as well. See here. Further thoughts?

Looks good to me!

Hi. Apologies for the silence at our end on this in recent days. We've been investing a little time to dig into the intricacies of multicurrency and cross-border transactions. I'm hopeful that by the end of the day today I will actually have the detail on this. In brief, as I currently understand Paypal's service, they charge both for currency conversion and what they call cross-border payments. These charges aren't huge, but they are there, and I'm trying to work out who gets charged (Platform 6 as the sender or the recipient) and when, so that we can be clear on what happens. You folks may have already come across this; if so please share any insights you've gained. Other than this I think we are good to go. Thanks for your patience.

@Graham @Matthew Cropp @Matt Noyes I just heard from Alanna at Open Collective, and they need to move us off our current "host" as they're shutting it down. Can we complete the move over to Platform 6? I'll ask about the timeline and whether there are other options.

It seems like the language was finalized but this was never put to a vote of the membership. Is that right?

Hi folks. My apologies - I let this fall of my to-do list, partly because it was so difficult to make sense of Paypal’s charges (which hasn’t changed). I think we’re still up for making this happen, especially if we can make payouts without using Paypal. How much time before OC shut down their host?

I've been talking about getting Cooperative Development Institute (in the US) set up as a fiscal host for another project, so if Platform 6 is administratively a bridge too far, this could be the kick in the pants for me to see about getting that over the finish line. It'd be likewise good to know the time-frame.

GEO has acted as fiscal sponsor for co-ops, too, if more options are needed.

That would be a great option (probably better than CDI), given that GEO is active on Social.coop, and the little bit of revenue would make a meaningful difference for them.

Thanks, friends. I like the GEO option, too. Is GEO set up on Open Collective, @Matt Noyes? And @Graham, it looks like we have a few weeks to do the transition.

Either option would be great in my book. I suspect P6 and GEO are better than CDI, as the former are both actively involved, as @Matthew Cropp says.

What is the timeline here? The fiscal sponsor would not be GEO, but the Ecological Democracy Institute of North America (EDINA).

We'd need to settle this within a few weeks.

Structurally, P6 might be preferable then, since it is a cooperative.

It sounds like GEO/EDINA will have a fiscal sponsorship meeting on the 29th, so if we could have a go/no-go from P6 before then, we could aim to have a proposal to be on the agenda for that meeting. @Graham, is that timeline workable for P6?

Update: Open Collective will not be able to host us going forward. So we do need to move forward on this. Any word, @Graham @Matt Noyes ?

I think @Matthew Cropp has it right. Ball is currrently in P6 court. If there were a proposal from Social.Coop (along the lines of the proposal to P6), it could be discussed at the GEO meeting tomorrow. If a proposal is not ready, it would be good to know what is the exact timeline.

I messaged Graham and other P6 people in P6 slack. Will update you before the GEO meeting @Matt Noyes!

We - Platform 6 Development Co-operative Limited - https://platform6.coop - are up for doing this on the basis that we both go into the arrangement with the approach that we'll be open and transparent about how it's working, and willing to co-operate to to ensure that the arrangement is mutually effective.

I don't think I'm saying anything that I've not previously mentioned earlier in this discussion: our OC operation is currently tied to our £ sterling bank account, so monies coming in via Stripe get converted to sterling (at Stripe's mid-market rates), and payments going out via Paypal into other currencies and countries are subject to Paypal's fees. We are looking at alternative accounts that can offer multi-currency options as that may prove to be a good way to go to minimise operating costs, and we're willing to continue to explore this and other options that might help us work even better together.

As a fiscal host our commission rate is currently set at just 2% (I think the default hosts and most others are at 5%), as we're aiming to be low cost. We're not seeking to make this a profitable activity particularly, but it does come with costs and some admin overhead and we don't want to lose money on it either, so we may need to adjust our rate over time once we have some useful data to help us understand what's happening in practice. Any such modifications would be considered in cooperation with the collectives that we are hosting.

So our goal here is to be supportive, to enable social.coop and similar cooperative projects to thrive, and to cooperate for mutual benefit and success. If the social.coop folks are up for going into the arrangement on an equally open-handed basis I believe that we can work together to achieve successful outcomes, and I look forward to working with you all to make this happen. We're also excited by the potential of this practical international co-operation, and the further opportunities that it might bring.

@Graham just pinging you. Is there anything we need to finalize before we bring this decision to the main Social.coop group? Is P6 on board?

Hi. Apologies for not being here. Had a hectic few days. Let's go! As I recall the first thing you need to do is remove the funds from your collective and pay them over to P6, then OC can move the collective to our host, and we can re-add the funds. As I recall Alanna offered assistance?

I'm thrilled to announce that we have now officially transferred our fiscal host on Open Collective to Platform 6, thanks to @Graham. Social.coop is now legally part of a cooperative!