---
# System prepended metadata

title: 'Thur August, 5, 2021 - Fiscal Hosts Open Meeting'
tags: [fiscalhosts, public]

---

# Thur August, 5, 2021 - Fiscal Hosts Open Meeting
###### tags: : `fiscalhosts` `public`

## Who's here?
![](https://i.imgur.com/c36CZZH.png)
- Leen, JF (TIOF - KL, Malaysia), Betsy (London, SCN) & Nanda, Annette (Extinction Rebellion Africa liasion, 57 local groups), Pia OOO, Benjamin  Melançon (People Who Give a Damn, [Minneapolis Northside Mutual Aid](https://opencollective.com/mpls-northside-mutual-aid) 

# Topics From BenJam:
### * **documentation**: how do we ensure that our knowledge is documented, distributed and accessible?
- https://docs.opencollective.com/help/internal/host-admin-manual
    - need to showcase this doc more
- How to we ensure that we as a group capture all the knowledge/understanding?
    - Should it be generic? Can we async ensure that everyone has their own standards/procedures?
    - 'the docs are useful when you have a problem'
        - its more like a reference tool
- - Building a tiny working group with some expertise to work thru the problem of international payments- it has been a unresolveable topic
    - creating a collaboritive Google Doc (as opposed to the stablized Gitbook)
    - changes day-to-day
        - e.g. Transferwise worked w Uganda one day, but not the next
    - would be very specific country-to-country
    - Benjam can kick this process off & put the link in the #hosts channel
    - we want to continue this coversation of peer support and are open to more methods of interaction
    - Nanda (SCN): Also just wanted to mention when i had a question about transferring to nigeria i ask on slack and someone from the community got in touch and helped. So the wider slack might be super helpful, beyond just us fiscal hosts
### * **peer-suppor**t: is there anything more that we can do to support one another outside of these meetings? what format(s) work best for those conversations?
### * **representation**: how and in what ways can and should we represent our communities in issues that concern them and/or issues that they are concerned about?
* Supply chain security initiative from Biden admin that directly affect OS movement
* Plain Text Group
    * Eric Schmit
* How to take a community of ~3000 and reflect the current issues that represent these groups
* Has anyone experienced something similar?
    * Part of broader open source strategy
    * Ben may reach out 1<>1 or if you want to discuss this with him, please reach out 
 
## What are your current goals and struggles?
- SCA hasn't had working PayPal for a few months
    - also have many requests for virtual cards (see below)
## How the host community can help you?
- Perhaps a quarterly 'Strategy/Creative Planning Forum' for chatting about less technical, more scoping things. We're all doing similar mission-aligned work, let's chat about it!
    - - Would be nice to have a quarterly 'Strategy Session' for brainstorming/collaboration
    - Nanda: seeing OCF's strategy publication was great, was also very aligned w Social Change Agency, would be nice to have an open meeting to discuss these types of these - more 'creative' rather than 'technical'

## How OC can help you?
- Embedding components (JF)
    - most orgs have their own websites
    - being able to embed (define in OC once and then embed) makes a more consistent experience
        - Benjam: there is an intention to bring hosts/collectives to foreground & OC into background, so this is in our roadmap to make happen
- Expense API
    - does the current API allow for submitting expenses? Need to check with Francois
        - ideal to not duplicating effort of posting
        - would be easier to have a webhook
        - Benjam: we are trying to do more on the graph API
            - OC team are looking at better integration with tools like xero and quickbooks, we need these tools as well, 
            -  - JF: https://graphql-docs-v2.opencollective.com/expense.doc.html
            - [TIOF] Jean F. Queralt @Sudharaka: Objective: Avoid duplication of work having to report an expense in both OC + your own reporting platform.
                - The ideal situation would be:
                    - Expense is settled
                    - Enter expense in accounting software
                    - Call webhook and post it on OC
    
- Team config (Subgroups + Externals)
           
    - team is inherited from original group into Projects, there is not a way to remove those collective admins within the Project
    - can't rearrange Projects, would be nice to be able to
        - Benjam: Why not just create a separate collective? - can use 'related collectives' feature. -- looking for workarounds bc permissions things will be complicated. open to exploring other options as well
- Enabling collective leadership
    - Nanda: require min of 3 admins per initiative. its hard to get into the level of detail necessary for the hosts
        - would like a way of letting the collectives set their own approval/admission standards
        - OSC & OCF also require min 2 admins/collective
        - BJ: being able to assign reviewers makes sense
            - trying to encode policy into the platform would need to be very flexible
            - "absolutely want the ability to require more than one admins to make approvals, this has been an issue for Minneapolis Northside Open Collective)"
        - currently any admin can approve an expense
        - not enough accountability
            - just like everyone can set their own expense policy, would be nice to have only certain ppl have access to expense approval
- Big requests for virtual cards / confusion about features accessible to OCF that are not available to everyone else (from the OCF strategy)
    - we're still sorting out the beta testing before having it accessible to all
    - issues with the provider per country
        - e.g. lithic isnt as cost-effective as Privacy
        - may have to look into Stripe for variation of country support
        - the process of the application is now working (have been working out the kinks)
    - how open can we be with integration

## Other OC Updates
- The OC team's roadmap for the rest of the year is more about consolidating/cleaning up current features rather than creating new ones
- We plan to use The Giving Block
    - ways to donate w crypto
    - Leen: AllForClimate will start a new campaign using crypto, so this is very topical
    - Annette: crypto is rapidly becoming more helpful too
