Budget Sense Check responses

Thank you to everyone who commented and participated in the Sense Check poll about the 2026 budget! Here's my best attempt to address the concerns I see in those comments:

1. What are the goals of Social.coop? 'The only two explicitly-stated goals I've been able to find are on the Wiki: 1) Operate a Mastodon server, and 2) work toward the "…goal of placing ever more of our online social lives under good cooperative governance."'

   1. Only about 20 people are involved in the Working Groups and Organizing Circle for Social.coop. This has two results that are relevant to this question:

      1. We just about have the capacity to keep going as we have been, with very little energy for increasing the workload.

      2. At least some of us feel hesitant to state goals for the larger membership. There is certainly room for people to get involved either in the Working Groups or in Loomio discussions to increase clarity here!

2. Should we increase stipends?

   1. We did consult with all the Working Groups and ask for input on the stipend amounts. There were no responses, even though we made it clear that we could increase stipends if wanted.

   2. Stipends are not meant to be compensation for work done, but rather an honorarium to thank volunteers - for various reasons, not everyone feels comfortable accepting even these stipends. Even if we could afford something like an hourly rate, then we would get into a sticky place with taxes etc.

3. We should update our legal status and get ourselves to something we can consider "good cooperative governance."

   1. Great idea! Let's put out a call for members of the Legal Working Group to run this, and to submit any additional budget requests that they need to effect it.

4. We should consider an Equity Planning Activity or Equity Audit.

   1. Great idea! How would you like to move it forward, and what help do you need? If we can identify a working group with capacity to help (or add capacity for this) we can submit an additional budget request to support it.

5. "A social.coop nextcloud instance would be cool"

   1. We are a member of May First's NextCloud services for Social.coop operations: https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/May_First_Movement_Technology. Given the shoestring nature of our operation, it does not feel wise to me to offer NextCloud services to the membership. One option is for individuals to become May First members if they wish to use that service.

Hopefully the above gives context for why we passed a budget that is so similar to last year's actuals.

-Melissa (@ansate@social.coop) on behalf of the OC

Budget 2026 as passed by the Organizing Circle

• All values are in GBP (Great Britain Pounds).

• This format aligns with how Open Collective reports financial data: Transaction Reports

Projected Budget

• Member contributions are projected to decline in 2026.

• As of 2026-04-16 there were 403 active contributions:
  average 30.78 GBP per year
  median 12.00 GBP per year

1. Projection based on data from 2026-04-01

2. Social.coop is working with Meet.coop to resume our services; as a result, we may spend less than this budgeted amount in 2026.

3. Platform 6 Development Co-operative is our fiscal host; we contribute towards administrative costs.

Projected Balance

Expenses

1. May First membership fees (250 USD) were mistakenly reimbursed twice (500 USD total) and accounted for in 2024.

2. Legal Working Group was established in late 2025.

3. Social‍.coop continues to maintain a credit balance with Hetzner (a hosting service) to cover monthly invoices, avoid credit card payment issues, and reduce administrative work

(Huge thanks to @Andrew Escobar (Andres) · social.coop Finance Working Group for the budget details, including the forecasting and the formatting!)