Budget 2026
Andrew Escobar (Andres) · social.coop Finance Working Group Sun 17 May 2026 9:59PMPublicSeen by 8Note: This is a cross-posted version of Budget 2026. It was created and approved by the Organizing Circle based on Budget 2025. Member and contribution were projected by Finance Working Group.
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
Actual 2025 |
Budget 2026 |
|
|---|---|---|
Contributions 1 |
13,208 |
13,001 |
Expenses |
–11287 |
–11,533 |
Payment Processor Fees |
–874 |
–820 |
Outgoing Contributions |
||
Meet.coop 2 |
–1080 |
–1080 |
Platform 6 3 |
–600 |
–600 |
Net Change |
–633 |
–1031 |
Projection based on data from 2026-04-01
Social.coop is working with Meet.coop to resume our services; as a result, we may spend less than this budgeted amount in 2026.
Platform 6 Development Co-operative is our fiscal host; we contribute towards administrative costs.
Projected Balance
2025 |
2026 |
|
|---|---|---|
Starting balance |
27,249.00 |
29,495.47 |
Net change: Budget 2025 |
2,246.47 |
–2,878.83 |
Net change: Budget 2026 |
–1,031.00 |
|
Ending balance |
29,495.47 |
28,463.44 |
Projected Expenses
Actual 2025 |
Budget 2026 |
|
|---|---|---|
Social.coop |
||
Loomio subscription |
–373.39 |
–375 |
May First membership 1 |
0.00 |
–250 |
Finance Working Group |
||
Community Contributions |
–3605.04 |
–4000 |
Stipends |
–1000 |
–1000 |
Legal Working Group |
||
Stipends 2 |
–1000 |
|
Technology Working Group |
||
Domain |
–132.62 |
–100 |
Hosting 3 |
–824.07 |
–1808 |
Stipends |
–1000 |
–1000 |
Community Working Group |
||
Stipends |
–1,731.74 |
–1000 |
Organizing Circle |
||
Stipends |
–857.15 |
–1000 |
Total |
–11,286.70 |
–11,533 |
May First membership fees (250 USD) were mistakenly reimbursed twice (500 USD total) and accounted for in 2024.
Legal Working Group was established in late 2025.
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.
Andrew Escobar (Andres) · social.coop Finance Working GroupWed 20 May 2026 9:10PM
@graham2 I agree, but I’m not sure there is a consensus among our org. circle or membership that we should grow our instance. Perhaps I can present the detailed analysis that “contributions are projected to decline.”
Andrew Escobar (Andres) · social.coop Finance Working GroupTue 16 Jun 2026 4:36PM
There is some discussion about growing membership and making onboarding easier, primarily through https://joinmastodon.org but it requires some policy and tech work.
Social.coop member retention is improving and average contributions are increasing. While contributions are expected to decline slightly this year (13,208 GBP in 2025 vs. 13,001 GBP projected in 2026), this is entirely attributable to a projected annual decline in November contributions, which have been tapering off since the Twitter-migration in November 2022.
| Year | November Total GBP |
|---|---|
| 2022 | 5,756 |
| 2023 | 4,050 |
| 2024 | 3,695 |
| 2025 | 3,130 |
| 2026 | 2,817 |
2026: projecting a 10% decline from November 2025
Josh DavisMon 18 May 2026 12:30PM
Looks good to me. We seem to be in an overall good place. Growth may have leveled out, but I don't think that's a problem.
GrahamThu 21 May 2026 9:00AM
@Josh Davis @Andres It's true that if growth has levelled out that may well not be a problem, but if numbers are in decline that could signal a potential problem. I'm simply interested in understanding what is happening and why so that an assessment can be made and if any action is needed.
GrahamWed 17 Jun 2026 8:22AM
By way of some context I am hopeful - nothing certain yet - that innovation.coop will have some additional capacity and (assuming that groups like social.coop are content with it) will be using that capacity in part to develop, support and promote the ecosystem of organisations that we are connected to, as well as building out a broader service offer that we feel might be of interest to other groups and organisations that are aligned with our values.
Graham ·Mon 18 May 2026 8:53AM
Hi. Interested to hear that contributions are expected to decline in 2026. What's driving that? Would it be helpful to do some work on recruitment?