# Who we are

Gift Collective is a project of The Gift Trust.

[The Gift Trust](https://www.thegifttrust.org.nz/) is a registered charitable trust and donor advised fund, with a decade of experience in the charity sector in Aotearoa, and a track record of managing millions in philanthropic funding. It is the fundholder for all Gift Collective funds.

[Open Collective](https://opencollective.com/) is an international company that makes a software platform many entities around the world use to provide crowdfunding and fundholding services.  The relationship between the kiwi ventures and Open Collective Inc is like that of any software vendor and customer (not a parent company or owner). If you join, your project, initiative, or community will become a Collective, with its own page on the platform to fundraise and manage your budget.

1. Transparent—everyone can see where the money comes from and where it goes.
2. Collective & Ongoing—designed for collaborative communities to be funded over time, not one-off campaigns or tied to a single individual.
3. Fundholding (a.k.a. fiscal sponsorship or auspicing)—instead of simply transferring you the funds, we hold them in our bank account and pay them out as you go, taking care of painful stuff like taxes, accounting, liability, and payment processing, so you don't have to. We offer charity fundholding as well, to help you meet philanthropic grant requirements and provide donation tax credits.

**Are you a not-for-profit?**

Gift Collective is under the umbrella of a registered charitable trust and is completely not-for-profit. Everything about [our budget](https://opencollective.com/giftcollective) is transparent, too!


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