What Open Source Collective does

Open Source Collective (OSC) is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit fiscal host founded in 2017 and headquartered in Covina, California (EIN 82-2037583). The organization provides financial and legal infrastructure for open source projects, currently hosting 3,500+ projects including Webpack, Babel, JHipster, Mautic, and Open Web Docs. OSC handles accounting, tax compliance (including automated 990 forms), invoice and contract management, employment and benefits via PEO/EOR partnerships, U.S. trademark registration and holding, domain transfers, grant administration, and multi-currency payouts. The organization was incubated by Open Collective Inc. and now operates independently with its own board of directors and staff, while continuing to use the Open Collective platform as its transparent financial ledger with real-time, publicly visible budgets.

The underlying technology stack centers on the Open Collective platform for fundraising, expense processing, and transparent budgeting, integrated with Stripe, PayPal, and Wise for payment processing, Remote.com for PEO services, Namecheap for domain registration, Cloudflare for DNS, and GitBook for documentation. Crypto-native funding is supported via Drips (ERC-20 tokens) and Coinbase. OSC also funds and maintains ecosyste.ms, described as the world's most comprehensive public dataset on open source production and use, which underpins its Ecosystem Funds product that packages open source components into language- and framework-centric funding pools.

Revenue is generated primarily through a standard 10% administration fee applied to funds flowing through the platform (from GitHub Sponsors, Drips, direct donations), supplemented by pass-through fees for discrete services such as U.S. trademark registration ($1,200), domain transfers (starting ~$15), and PEO/EOR subscriptions ($49–$99 per employee per month). Go-to-market is community-led and self-serve: projects apply via the Open Collective platform, discover OSC through the GitHub ecosystem, and are supported through Discord, email, and 1:1 video. Channel partnerships with GitHub, Google Summer of Code, Google Season of Docs, and Digital Ocean Hacktoberfest extend reach into the broader open source developer community.

Name

Open Source Collective

Legal name

Open Source Collective

Website

https://oscollective.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Open Source Collective is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit fiscal host providing financial and legal infrastructure — accounting, taxes, contracts, employment, and trademarks — for over 3,500 open source projects worldwide, monetizing via a 10% administration fee.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Fiscal Hosting Services

NAICS

Business Associations (813910), Professional Organizations (81392)

SIC

Services-Membership Organizations (8600)

akta.pro primary industry

Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access Academic Publishing (MPAJABAG)

akta.pro secondary industry

OER Licensing, Rights & Open Policy Support (Creative Commons) (EDAGAJAO)

Keywords

• Fiscal hosting services
• Open source funding
• Nonprofit financial administration
• Expense processing services
• Open source compliance

Headquarters

HQ city

Covina

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Fiscal Hosting Administration Fees: Standard 10% administration fee on funds raised through the platform. Fee applies to funds from GitHub Sponsors, Drips, and other payment sources.
2. Gas Fees for Ethereum Transactions: Gas fees for Drips transactions on Ethereum blockchain are paid by OSC and charged back to collectives.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Open Source Collective (OSC) is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit fiscal host that provides the legal and financial infrastructure for open source projects. OSC acts as the legal and financial 'API' between open source communities and the world of accounting, handling accounting, taxes, invoices, contracts, employment, trademarks, domain transfers, grants, and expense processing on behalf of 3,500+ hosted projects worldwide. Projects retain IP ownership while OSC operates the administrative and compliance layers, with real-time transparent budgets visible to everyone.

Product overview

Open Source Collective is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit fiscal host providing a unified platform of financial and legal infrastructure services for open source projects. The core offering is Fiscal Hosting, which encompasses expense processing, accounting and tax administration, legal compliance, grant management, and employment/benefits services. OSC integrates with the Open Collective platform for fundraising and financial transparency. Key product integrations include GitHub Sponsors, Drips (cryptocurrency), Polar.sh, Google Summer of Code, and Google Season of Docs for fund collection, plus contractor payment platforms (Fiverr, Upwork, Ko-fi). Supporting platforms include ecosyste.ms (open source data), Ecosystem Funds (automated funding), and BackYourStack (dependency discovery). The service portfolio also includes trademark registration, domain management, conference support, and governance mediation. Educational resources are provided through guides.oscollective.org. All services are designed to allow open source maintainers to focus on their projects while OSC handles operational and administrative complexity.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Fiscal Hosting Core service providing financial and legal infrastructure for open source projects. OSC acts as the legal and financial home, handling accounting, taxes, invoices, contracts, employment, and fund management for 2,500+ open source projects worldwide via a self-serve application through the Open Collective platform.
• Trademark Registration and Holding Service helping open source projects register new trademarks and transfer existing ones with OSC holding the trademarks on their behalf. U.S. Single Trademark Registration is priced at $1,200 USD with additional categories at $350 each; U.S. Trademark Transfer is $350 USD.
• Google Summer of Code Administration Administrative and payment processing service for Google Summer of Code, handling GSoC stipends through OSC using Payoneer and supporting both hosted and non-hosted projects participating in the program.
• Google Season of Docs Administration Fiscal hosting and grant distribution service for Google Season of Docs, distributing grants to accepted technical writing projects via the Open Collective platform.
• Conference Support Program supporting open source maintainers attending non-technical conferences and providing financial and promotional support for open source conference organizers through fiscal hosting budgets.
• Educational Guides and Workshops Series of live workshop-based training and published guides covering topics such as growing contributors, recruiting sponsors, project hygiene, and handling burnout, hosted at guides.oscollective.org.

Named customers5 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration30 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

13 partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.

• Google Summer of CodecoreGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 January 2024OSC serves as administrative partner and payments processor for Google Summer of Code, a global program bringing new contributors into open source development.
• Google Season of DocscoreGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 January 2024Google Season of Docs partners with OSC as fiscal host using Open Collective platform to distribute grants to accepted technical writing projects.
• GitHubcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerOSC is an approved fiscal host for GitHub Sponsors and Secure Open Source Fund programs. GitHub sends monthly payments to OSC-registered projects automatically.
• Digital Ocean HacktoberfestmajorGTM or Marketing PartnerOSC serves as administrative partner for Digital Ocean's Hacktoberfest campaign, a major annual open source event.
• Open Policy AlliancemajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerOSC is a founding member of the Open Policy Alliance, an organization educating and informing US policy related to open source content, research, and education.
• Ecosystem FundsmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerOSC developed Ecosystem Funds to address lack of financial support for critical open source components. Uses ecosyste.ms data to package critical open source into funds by language/framework. OSC donates 1% of annual revenue through Ecosystem Funds.
• Open CollectivecoreTechnology or IntegrationOSC uses Open Collective platform as a ledger for real-time, transparent financial records. Open Collective Inc. provides the software platform. OSC was originally incubated by Open Collective but is now independent.
• SustainOSSminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerOSC partners with SustainOSS to move the conversation around open source sustainability toward practical progress. Sustain held first meeting in 2017 with 100 attendees from various organizations.
• StripecoreOthersPrimary payment processor for card payments, recurring payments, and certain bank transfers.
• PayPalcoreOthersPayment processor for donations and some payments with multi-country/currency support.
• WisecoreOthersPayment processor for domestic and international transfers with multi-currency support.
• GitCoinminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerOSC pioneered quadratic/democratic funding approach with GitCoin as part of FundOSS campaign.
• The Open Source PledgeminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerOSC joined The Open Source Pledge as a supporting organization through Ecosystem Funds work.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• NumFOCUS: A 501(c)(3) nonprofit that fiscally sponsors open source projects in data science and scientific computing. Comparable to OSC as a fiscal sponsor with project-driven funding and educational/community programs.
• Software Freedom Conservancy: A 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor for free and open source software projects, providing financial, legal, and administrative support. Directly comparable to OSC in serving open source projects as a nonprofit fiscal host, with a longer track record in copyleft-focused projects.
• Open Collective Foundation: A 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal host that also provides financial and legal infrastructure for open source and community projects. Most directly comparable to OSC in business model and target customer base, differing primarily in tax-deductibility of donations.

Broad incumbents

• Patreon: A broad creator-funding platform that is also integrated with OSC for open source project donations. Comparable as a payment and recurring-funding channel but much broader in scope.
• Apache Software Foundation: A 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides legal and financial infrastructure specifically for Apache open source projects. Comparable in fiscal-host function but narrowly scoped to the Apache ecosystem.
• Linux Foundation: The largest open source foundation, providing fiscal, legal, and event infrastructure across hundreds of projects. Operates at much greater scale than OSC and hosts flagship projects, representing both a partner ecosystem and a potential competitor for high-profile projects.
• GitHub Sponsors: GitHub's native platform for sponsoring open source maintainers, with OSC as an approved fiscal host. Functionally a partner and distribution channel, but also a potential disintermediation risk if GitHub expands direct fiscal capabilities.

Emerging players

• Tidelift: A commercial platform that helps companies pay open source maintainers and manage OSS dependencies. Comparable to OSC's mission of funding maintainers but uses a subscription/SaaS model with corporate buyers rather than fiscal sponsorship.
• Drips: An Ethereum-based streaming and split-payment protocol for funding open source projects. Comparable as a funding-channel alternative that can integrate with OSC's fiscal-host infrastructure.
• Polar.sh: A modern funding platform for open source and digital creators with built-in paid-issue and SaaS-style sponsorship tools. Comparable as a channel that routes funds to maintainers, with direct integration into OSC for downstream fiscal hosting.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/opensourcecollective

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles10 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Open Source Collective