Hey folks, 

Nathan speaking. Ember and I have been getting into a new groove over the last month, and it’s starting to feel really good to be part of a team. Even though I don’t get to email everyone or pay expenses quite as much as I used to, it continues to be my honor to be working with you. And Ember has had nothing but great things to say about y’all. Anyway, read on for a few updates from us!

First use of member funds: GrantStation!

Thanks so much to everyone who followed through on submitting their “vote” (pw: “solidarity”) for the Member Fund! As you will remember, we set aside 10% of all administrative cost allocations (aka “fees”) into a fund controlled by you, which currently stands at about $26k. Remember, votes are rolling so you can ALWAYS submit, or re-submit if you want to change your choices!

So far, a little over $9k has been allocated by projects, and as you can see here, the grant database “bucket” has reached its goal! For our first grant database (we may add others over time), we have landed on GrantStation, which actually comes in under-budget, but outperforms the other options we tried. It has matching and search tools for both funding opportunities and funder profiles. We found it to be the most intuitive and comprehensive, and we hope it will be useful wherever your project is on its funding journey.

Keep an eye out on RaftTalk (join here!) for an announcement of how to take advantage of this tool! Or if you want us to alert you via email, just let us know with a reply to this one. We are in the process of activating it now. 

Summer gathering

RSVP for our next virtual gathering here: https://luma.com/raft-summer-2026 

We would LOVE to have you! We will spend some time getting to know one another and supporting each other, as we always do on these calls. By leaning into deeper relationship with one another, we become more powerful and resilient. 

Wiki updates

• Added guidance on how to update your legal name on OC

• Added detail on paid time off to Employment

• Noted in the Cardholder Agreements that a senior Raft core team member can make an exception where operationally required (usually around documentation)

Operational notes

• DWeb Camp: Nathan will be at DWeb Camp south of Berlin later this month. He is looking forward to seeing several of you there! 

• Covering insurance costs: We are waiving the standard general liability insurance costs for projects this year! Our next renewal is a year from now, and we will confirm at that point whether we will continue the policy of covering this cost (typically about $75 per project per year). Event insurance and employment-related insurances will still need to be covered by the project, where applicable

• Dandelion vs Luma for events: We have been using Luma quite a bit for project events, but we are starting to be interested in trying a cooperatively operated alternative, Dandelion. If you are interested, too, let us know and we will get a profile set up!

• Google Workspace migrations: After struggling to execute them well, we have changed our policy for Google Workspace migrations (from an existing workspace). We now require that projects wishing to migrate their existing workspace to us cover the costs of hiring Tech Impact to do it well. Projects not needing to migrate can still join at no cost (though of course we have complicated feelings about using Google services at all)

• New projects: Please join us in welcoming Doomer Optimism and Patchwork Collective!

• Departing projects: This month we are saying “goodbye and thank you” to Good Neighbors and Forage Org, who closed out their projects.

• Private wiki access: Join RaftTalk so that you can view the Private Wiki pages! Use this invite link~

• Form password: Don’t forget, the password for all internal forms is currently “solidarity”!

• Announcements and celebrations: Have something to announce or celebrate? Send it our way and we will include it in the next bulletin.

We continue to be in awe of your work! It is our purpose to support you. Have a great July~

Nathan and Ember