On March 18, 2024, we published an update to our donors with the news that our fiscal host, Open Collective Foundation, is dissolving. This has nothing to do with the WPCC specifically, as the OCF hosts almost 600 organizations under its umbrella. It is also not related to the platform on which OCF and the WPCC were established: Open Collective, the platform, is not shutting down.

However, the dissolution directly impacts the WPCC, as we must take action to move our organization … somewhere. With the money we have raised thus far, we must find a new fiscal host to continue our work as a 501(c)(3) organization. Alternatively, we can choose to organize as a 501(c)(6) or an unaffiliated organization but to do that, we must spend down all of our raised funds before September 30, 2024.

An important thing to note is that per the legal obligations of 501(c)(3) funding, we cannot transfer any of the funds we hold to any organization unless it is also a 501(c)(3), not-for-profit charity organization. 

As the founding board, we remain committed to the mission of the WPCC: to support the WordPress community and its contributors. We have active projects with sponsors underway, and we would very much like to see those through. However, as we aim for the WPCC to be a true collective and to take our direction from our contributors and collaborators, we seek input from our community as to what they (you!) feel is the best course of action. 

On our site, we’ve organized a matrix outlining some of our options, both for alternative fiscal hosts (there are not many that encompass our mission and industry), and for changing the structure of the WPCC. We'd appreciate feedback from you, the WPCC contributors, regarding the options.

Please note: We are asking our community FIRST. We have not yet met with the OCF closing management to discuss their suggestions, nor have we had any meetings with prospective fiscal hosts. We will be doing both in the coming weeks.