Hum.community vs Open Collective — High-Level Differences, Pros & Cons

1. Core Purpose & Philosophy

Built as infrastructure for hyper-local, community-led decision-making, not just money management.
Designed for participatory micro-granting where community members vote directly on how funds flow, in a continuous, non–time-gated model.
Emphasises community power, local relationships, Steward accountability, and transparent democratic processes.
Software is only one part — the approach includes facilitation, constitutions, stewards, and partner organisations.

A global platform for transparent financial hosting, helping groups receive money, make payments, and publish budgets publicly.
Designed originally for open-source / grassroots collectives needing a fiscal host and easy financial transparency.
Decision-making structures are not built into the platform — each group manages decisions however they want.

Community members create ideas, turn them into proposals, and vote using conviction-based continuous voting.
Funds are released to individuals automatically when a proposal passes.
Built-in community constitution, steward manual, member onboarding, and transparency logs.
Optimised for small groups (10–100 people) with strong place-based identity.

Lets groups:
- Collect donations
- Receive grant money
- Make outgoing payments (via a fiscal host)
- Provide public transparency reports
No built-in voting or governance tools.
Broad use cases: open-source projects, mutual aid, clubs, advocacy groups, events, global networks.

hum: Decision-making is the product. Governance is structured, transparent, and tied to the flow of funds.
Open Collective: Governance is external; the platform only handles money once a decision is made.

hum: Designed for hyper-local, tight-knit, often marginalised or place-based communities.
Open Collective: Works best for distributed or online-first groups, especially where fiscal hosting is needed.

hum: Inspired by nature-like systems (e.g., conviction voting). The platform is experimental and governance-first.
Open Collective: Pragmatic financial infrastructure with long-established fiscal-hosting relationships.

hum: Requires partners, stewards, workshops, and community meetings. Community building is part of the rollout.
Open Collective: Low-touch. Groups sign up and start managing funds immediately.

True community control of funding decisions.
Ideal for place-based communities seeking empowerment, agency, and shared governance.
Continuous, dynamic decision-making avoids bureaucratic time-gated cycles.
Highly transparent internal accountability (events, steward thresholds, constitutional rules).
Built for micro-grants directly to individuals — powerful for wellbeing or grassroots innovation.
Encourages community cohesion through regular meetings and stewardship roles.

Requires higher setup effort: constitutions, steward training, onboarding, partner involvement.
Not yet optimised for large (>150) groups or global digital collectives.
Currently fiscal hosting and payments to individual community members is undertaken by the partner organisation.
More experimental; best suited to communities, funders and partners aligned with participatory, high-trust approaches.

Extremely simple onboarding — start receiving and spending money immediately.
Provides fiscal hosting, bank accounts, invoicing, payouts, accounting, donation pages.
Works well for online communities, open-source teams, mutual aid groups.
Mature, globally used, with clear fees and predictable workflows.
Excellent transparency tools for public reporting.

No decision-making governance model — groups must manage voting/governance somewhere else.
Not designed for structured, continuous participatory grantmaking.
Not tailored for hyper-local community empowerment or wellbeing outcomes.
Less suitable when the goal is distribution of power, not just management of funds.
Fiscal host will typically charge 5-10% fee plus payment processor fees (e.g. from Stripe, PayPal, Wise)

You want participatory grantmaking where the community decides everything.
You’re supporting a local, geographically bounded group.
The funder wants high-trust, community-led governance.
You want a tool that strengthens community relationships, not just finances.
You want to pilot innovative civic or wellbeing-oriented decision systems.

Your primary need is simple, transparent financial hosting.
You don’t need built-in voting or governance.
Your group is distributed, online-first, or already governed by another system.
You want to accept donations globally and handle payouts easily.
You want a mature, stable, transactional service.

Yes — and this may be ideal for some scenarios.

A community could use:

hum.community for decision-making and allocation of micro-grants,
Open Collective (or any fiscal host) for holding the funds and making payments.

This hybrid model might suit communities where:

Hum already supports external accountants and manual payout processes.