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Transparency and anonymity

3 min read

Transparency

At Raft Foundation, we use About Open Collective as a core platform for our financial tasks and communications. A great deal of information on Open Collective is transparent by default, including in some cases to the public. It pays to be proactive about what us shared.

Dollar amounts for transactions are visible to the public, but that is only the beginning. Other items that are visible to the public on a per-transaction basis include:

  • Contribution name/descriptions
  • For non-guest and non-incognito (anonymous) donations, donor name and profile
  • Expense titles
  • Invoice expense line item descriptions
  • Reimbursement expense receipt descriptions
  • The display name of the person or entity receiving funds, and the total amount of funds they received (broken down by invoices, reimbursements, and grants) this calendar year
  • The display name of the profile that submitted the expense, and the time they did so
  • The display name of the profiles that approved or otherwise interacted with the expense, and when they did so
  • The status of the expense (i.e., pending, approved, paid, etc.)
  • Expense tags
  • The expense payout method (not bank account numbers, but whether it was paid by “bank transfer” or some other method)

Collective, Project, Event, and Goal balances are also public on an ongoing basis.

This list was put together manually and may not be complete.

Anonymizing your personal profile

If you work with vulnerable populations, or are a member of one yourself, or are engaging in work that does not have the support of the state, you will want to obscure your identity on Open Collective. This will not necessarily hide you from Open Collective itself, or from Raft Foundation, but it will obscure your activity from public view.

Below are a couple strategies to employ. Let us know if you are aware of others.

Edit your display name

  1. Make sure you are logged in.
  2. On desktop or mobile, click on the profile image circle in the upper right hand corner of the screen, then select “Settings.”1
  3. Edit your “Display Name.”
  4. If you will seek to be paid by Raft Foundation, you will need to add your legal name and address, for our records. Donors over a certain amount are also required to provide this information.
  5. Check to make sure that no other identifying information is leaked through your handle, description, or any of the other fields.
  6. Click “Save” at the bottom!

Multiple accounts

Even after changing your display name, you may be identifiable through other activity (for example donations and expenses, past or future) on Open Collective using the same profile.

To maximize anonymity, you may wish to create a separate account specifically for your activity with Raft, or for submitting expenses, that is anonymous.

Footnotes

  1. Or as described in the Open Collective documentation, go to Dashboard > Settings > Info. ↩

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