All for Climate Summer Newsletter
Hello, again, collectives of the earth! 🌍
With summer around the corner, we have many important updates to share! ⛱️ ☀️
1. Event to join! 🗓 #savethedate
New Season/Community Assembly
Fun Fact: The 20th of June is the first day of summer! Whoop Whoop! 🥳
Wednesday, June 26th at 19:00 CET will be our first community assembly, where we will host a space for collectives, activists, team members and various contributors to unite and discuss various news from All for Climate. Check us out on our Discord server here!
Alternatively, you can check out our calendar and see which events you would like to join or keep up to date with the latest and greatest of All for Climate.
2. Summer break 🌻
After six months of tireless dedication, the hardworking team of All for Climate has successfully set this year's holiday dates.
Please be aware that expenses will not be processed during these periods:
- June 17th to June 23rd
- July 1st to July 11th
Submit your expenses on time if you'll need them reimbursed urgently!
In August, our team will also take a much-deserved break from meetings. Expenses will still be processed.
We greatly appreciate your understanding and patience as we continue our hard work and commitment to our mission.
3. Updates from our team 📣
From March to May, this is what A4C has been up to:
- We welcomed 10 new collectives!
A warm welcome to: Rhythms of Resistance, UAntwerpforpalestine, Generation Earth Portugal, KULeuven student encampment, End Fossil Gent x Gent students for Palestine, EUI researchers' Union, Reimagining Food Collective, XR Vannes, Collective Abundance, LGV Non Merci.
- We paid out 552 expenses, received 1660 contributions.
- We sent out, processed and evaluated an important questionnaire to collectives on fees, donations, expense follow-up, etc.
- We cleaned out donations not registered on OC, and implemented a follow-up system for these donations.
- We created a project management follow-up system and an extra MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) for collectives applying for grants.
- We received a grant from CEF to support our basic operations and host online workshops on fundraising (coming soon!). To support our other activities, we also crafted a payment framework and proposal system on Discord.
- We participated in the gatherings of Fiscal Hosts (both on OC and external) to share ideas, solutions and start a partnership with the external fiscal hosts.
- We continued our decentralisation plan by opening new chapters.
- We spring-cleaned Discord and moved to a new Google drive workspace.
- We participated in bilateral meetings with different partners and collectives of All for Climate.
- We brainstormed and strategized for a new Comms 4.0 plan.
4. Questionnaire Results are LIVE! 🥸
Earlier this year (April), we sent out a survey to find out what you amazing people thought of how well your collectives were being hosted. We would like to say thanks to all who participated in it. The feedback has been an integral part of our growth at All for Climate, and we are deeply grateful for it.
4.1. Processing Donations
- Most collectives reported moderate to high satisfaction, with an average score of 7,3 out of 10.
- Improvements were suggested by the collectives, such as eliminating the confusing 15% default tip and providing active support for increasing donations.
- All for Climate really urges you to inform donors on your platforms about the default tip and how to remove it (click on “edit” and “I do not want to contribute”). We also requested the Open Collective platform to refrain from keeping it as a default setting. They have taken up our comments and will get back to us.
- All for Climate will organise online workshops on fundraising from September onwards, thanks to the grant from CEF. We will keep you posted on this!
Some extra tips that we can share stemming from the responses:
- Donations can be reimbursed!
- You can create standalone pages/mini-crowdfunding campaigns with a separate link.
4.2. Processing Expenses
Overall, the collectives were satisfied with the process (average: 7,6). Recommendation from the collectives: Include a visual flowchart with extra info on what documentation is legally acceptable, etc.
4.3. Tips to help you navigate your collective
We also want to remind everyone that you can always contact us if something is unclear. Some tips we can share stemming from the responses:
What is required when submitting an expense? https://docs.allforclimate.earth/collectives/spending-money
- You can also invite someone to upload an expense and prepare everything for them.
Important Note: Do NOT pay other people back with your own account! The payee and the bank account holder should be the same person.
STEPS:
- Submit expense and select “invite someone to submit an expense.”
- Choose a personal or organisational account.
- Complete third-party details + invoice.
- Third-party will receive an e-mail to check and approve the expense.
- Admins can approve expense.
- You can upload up to 15 tickets in one expense by clicking on “add new receipt”. If it is for the same amount, either upload extra attachments or ensure all the different tickets make up the full amount.
4.4. FEES
Host Fee
On average, collectives leaned towards raising the host fee to 4%, and no one wanted to change to a subscription-based pricing model.
The willingness to pay more for complex expenses differed in the responses and was subjected to collective individual opinions. (Yes = 8, Maybe = 5, No = 4 ).
Grant Fee
An average raise to 8% was said to be acceptable.
Onboarding fee
The willingness to support A4C with an onboarding fee differed, with the results being (Not afford = 5, €10-20 = 5 , €20-30 = 3, €30-40 = 3).
4.5. Extras
Collectives can join our weekly calls on Discord to learn more and ask questions! Here
Additional services that collectives were mostly interested in are:
- Research into possible funding, how it works and how to apply.
- Becoming tax deductible.
- Having shared digital media platforms.
- Communication services.
5. Host Fees Update
After more than a year of consideration, following extensive consultations with other fiscal hosts and a thorough analysis of the responses received in the questionnaire, it has become clear that an adjustment in our host and grant fee is necessary to maintain All For Climate operative and keep providing support to our crescent 250 collectives. We know nobody likes fee increases, but with one of the lowest fees around, we hope to continue the path of creating impact sustainably.
This decision is driven by the ongoing legal and fiscal challenges All for Climate faces in remaining operational and effective within the demanding climate of fiscal hosting. The adjustment is crucial for sustaining our core operations and continuing to serve the collective needs effectively.
To provide transparency regarding this necessary change and the critical activities it aims to support, we welcome you to review our operational documents detailing our planned projects and associated financial needs for 2024:
Recently, we’ve seen a growing number of applications for grants and subsidies, which we love to see as it means the climate movement is getting extra support!
This also means that All for Climate is taking increasing responsibility for projects to be completed in a correct and timely manner. The unincorporated partnership means that collectives can spend their own money in full transparency and are fully responsible for their own activities.
This, however, often clashes with the agreements we need to sign on behalf of your collective. As a result, we drafted an extra MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) where we state that the collective is responsible for, e.g. making sure the money is spent on the budget requirements of the project, managing as a different project budget if required, preparing the narrative reports, etc.
All for Climate will always have to assist in drafting the financial reports, providing the possibility of separate project budgets and reviewing the drafted narrative reports together with the collective in a timely manner.
As these changes take up a lot more workload, All for Climate sees it as a necessary result to upgrade the grant fees as well.
Depending on the nature of each respective grant, particular details may need to be discussed with a collective interested in applying for a grant. We welcome you to always contact us plenty of time in advance, so we can support you in the best way possible.
All for Climate will present the proposal for the host fees update at the community assembly on June 26. Reminder to definitely join here!
6. Levelling Up the Infrastructure Behind All for Climate
At All for Climate, we believe in growth and development to make sure we are able to continually provide support whilst also innovating the way we do things to ensure transparency and safety. Our most recent 'levelling up' includes:
1. Formalisation & approval of current existing Governance
Have you ever wondered how All for Climate is being run? Check it out here!
2. New proposal system
Have you ever wanted to be a part of the decision-making process? If so, check out our Discord hub, where you can be a part of the major decision-making process and actually have your say.
We also use this hub for our shared back office to give people an inside look into All for Climate and create a place for you amazing people to ask questions!
2. Introducing the "Work Payments Framework"
The activation of this key item will empower us to collaboratively manage our monthly income and fund the exciting activities in our 2024 project plan. This groundbreaking first version is already being tested this month!
Interested in all of the above but you are not yet a collective hosted by All for Climate? What are you waiting for?
7. Wanna play some games?
Climate for All, the project that All for Climate is coordinating, in partnership with four other NGOs in Europe (Nausika Education Foundation, Zavod EREA, Selkie Educational Foundation, and the International Youth Work Trainers Guild) has just completed another inspiring phase!
After researching more than 100 games to see whether you can develop competences relevant to sustainability (we use GreenComp, the European Sustainability Competence Framework for our assessment) by playing them, we found out that no competence is left untapped. We should have expected this, but it turns out games are indeed the best way to guarantee developing competences. This was the first phase of the project, and you will be able to read our full report soon.
The next phase, was one of the most exciting ones! We got to develop our own games! We developed six inspiring games, playtested them, and further improved them based on the feedback received. We developed three board games (two card games and one board game with... a board), as well as three Live Action Role-Playing games (storytelling-rich games in which the player enacts a fictional character in a game setting). Those six games will soon be available in a free to download, print and play at home version, as well as a premium high quality product you can buy, to both enjoy playing and support the project.
So, what's next for the project? Within a few months, you will be able to get your hands on our first games, so be prepared for that! But we also had a "problem" while developing our games. Those six are just the first we managed to develop so far (and the minimum requirement of the project), but what happens when you gather inspiring, creative, talented people who want to make a difference in a collective? You guessed it, the Climate for All team has over a dozen more ideas for games to develop! And you can actually help to make this happen:
The next phase of the project, apart of course from getting our first games out there, consists of developing game-based workshops based on our games, and a training course for certifying facilitators to run those workshops! There will be an open call for the first external facilitators in September, published first on this newsletter right here. Wanna be the first to know?
Thank you!
As we wrap up this exciting edition of the All for Climate newsletter, we want to thank you for your unwavering support and enthusiasm. This summer is packed with fantastic events and crucial updates around All for Climate.
We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events and continuing our journey toward a sustainable future together. Your dedication and participation are what make this community thrive.
Stay engaged, stay inspired, and enjoy the summer ahead!
Warm regards,
The All for Climate Team 🌍🌿