Hello! If you are receiving this email, it is because you are a project lead for one of Raft Foundation’s fiscally-sponsored projects. We send out this bulletin in the latter part of every month.

Community + seasonal patterns

Solstice check-ins

We have reached out directly to any projects still needing to complete their June check-in report and/or set up a check-in meeting with us.

Project lead pairings

Our thanks for your patience with the somewhat blunt unveiling of the project-lead-to-project-lead social pairings last week. Many of you have already reached out to connect with your counterpart, but if you are too busy, no worries at all, just let the other project lead know and we can pair them with someone else. 

In the future, we will check in a week in advance to offer an opportunity to opt out closer to the date, and we also plan to provide some prompts to help get the conversation started. 

New projects

Please join us in welcoming Permaculture Collaboration Laboratory (US), LETS Studio Projects, and Grounded Governance Initiative!

Join us at DWeb Camp Cascadia

Several Raft project leads and Raft’s sole staff member Nathan will be attending DWeb Camp Cascadia, which is also itself a Raft project. Here’s a bit more about the event:

The first-ever DWeb Camp in Canada is coming up Aug 8-10 on Salt Spring Island in beautiful British Columbia. Yes, there will be mesh networks, yes there will be awesome shared meals, talks and conversations, yes, there will be camping under the stars, and more… Learn more and get your tickets via https://dwebyvr.org/camp/

Other community notes

• We have added a Community page to the documentation where we will start to capture these patterns (pw: ‘themany’)

• In the fall, we will add one more seasonal community element, an optional virtual gathering

Documentation updates

• Added guidance on how to edit your Open Collective settings so that project leads cannot approve their own expenses

• The aforementioned community page (still a work in progress)

• Added a documentation feedback form on the Welcome page

• Added guidance on PO boxes to the expense checklist

• Added Tally (an excellent online form software we can share!) to Technology

• Added our 2024 990-EZ (but nothing interesting in there, really) to key information

• Removed the Onboarding page for now (needs to be revamped)

• Added more behind-the-scenes policies to other financial policies

Reminder - the password for the member documentation is currently “themany”

Operational notes

• We are making a minor adjustment our approach to the portion of funds going to the Member Fund from 1% of all funds received to 10% of the administrative cost allocation (a.k.a. fiscal sponsorship fee). This simplifies the process of allocating member funds, given the fee reductions on large donations, without materially affecting the amount allocated (since 10% of our standard 10% Model A fee = 1% of all funds received)

• Relatedly, as of July 1, the Member Fund balance sits at $974.81

• In case you see it and wonder what it is, we have created a Funds On Hold project in Open Collective for whenever we need to hold funds of unknown purpose or for other logistical purposes - this keeps project funds totally separate from Raft’s operational balance

• We are in the process of joining the Techsoup Fiscally Sponsored Project Pilot so that our projects can access even more nonprofit discounts, more information to come next month

• For Model A projects, insurance documentation continues to be delayed, but we are starting to see some “endorsements” (the documents that officially add projects) come through, with a range of costs. For one project the cost was $250, for another it was $42, and for others it was waived for the rest of 2025 with an annual cost starting in 2026 of $76. We will reach out when we have more information (but don’t worry, no matter how long the documentation is delayed, the effective date of coverage still goes back to the date you joined Raft)

• Those of you who are “tapped in” to the ongoing structural evolution of the Open Collective platform may have heard that they are updating their pricing in 2026 to improve their financial sustainability. Rest assured that we are prepared for their adjustment in pricing and in fact welcome it - Nathan actually developed, modeled, and recommended the original version of this pricing model before leaving Open Collective in Feb. 2024

• In the previous bulletin, we solicited feedback on “collaborative grant applications” - for now, we will not make any attempt to combine projects’ grant applications, even when they are applying for the same grant, but if it surfaces to us that multiple projects are applying for the same funds, we will check with the funder to make sure that this will not be detrimental to the projects’ applications

As always, feel free to respond with any questions or thoughts, or email team@raft.foundation. 

Warmly,

The Raft Team