Mission, Vision & Impact areas

It all comes back to resilience

Mission

Open Source Europe wants to make the social and solidarity economy and open source technologies sustainable. Our mission is to enable initiatives to raise and spend money transparently under a common umbrella nonprofit.

Open Collective is an unusual company. In its ecosystem, a software company coexists with independent associations and foundations that we call 'hosts.' Open Source Europe is growing as one of the first major fiscal hosts on the European continent. We host initiatives that share our values and work towards a better future. Our values, and our vision for a healthy and thriving world, start with resilience. From that central concern come six related areas where we want to make a difference.

Resilient communities

Humanity is divided on countless fronts, but most will agree on the need for resilience. When systems fail, we need fallback buffers. Resilient communities don't break when one system failure causes the next. They have a patchwork of fallbacks to absorb the shocks. Resilience is when people next to you on the street know how to give CPR or can swim to save someone from drowning. It is when the families in your neighborhood own their own homes, and when your community has enough nurses to deliver your children and enough teachers to educate them. It is when every other house in your neighborhood has solar panels, feeding spare capacity back to the grid. When authorities arrive at a natural disaster, they find that the local community has already started helping itself. It is a society of ordinary people who are great leaders when they need to be. Resilience keeps people, jobs, and services in your hometown. And when we can trust our community to catch us if we fall, we can safely turn our attention to working for the greater good. That is why we put resilient communities at the center of our mission.

Open innovation

When we use science and technology wisely, it makes us more resourceful. We expand our horizons and capabilities. If we share our findings, we grow stronger together. We encourage people to work together, and through the network effect we help knowledge and technology spread faster. Otherwise, we risk becoming divided by increasing technological gaps. Civil society is key to making innovation available to all. Distributed networks of passionate people around the world develop open-source software. Citizen scientists collect and share data. Civil engineers document how to build more energy-efficient homes. Technologists share blueprints for 3D printers and robots. Maker spaces around the world help people innovate and repair. Open innovation makes all of this possible.

Commons stewardship

When a social innovation, cultural institution, or green space starts feeling like it has always been there, it has become a common good. We hope the commons we create will become so readily available that they appear unremarkable. And it is at exactly this point that it becomes vulnerable. Humankind longs for what is new and exciting. We want to solve the urgent problems of the day, and that is where we focus our attention. But we also need to pay attention to maintaining the solutions to problems we have already solved. Once saved from deforestation, a forest needs protection from invasive species. A community center built by one generation must be repaired and maintained by the next. Technology that encrypts websites and emails and keeps us safe from surveillance must be updated. We cannot take our commons for granted. If we do, all our work on communities, solidarity, culture, innovation, and ecologies risks being undone. For our progress to last, we need to support commons stewardship.

Fiscal hosting in Europe and beyond

We are based in Europe but offer fiscal hosting to initiatives around the world. If our vision speaks to you, get in touch. We are ready to host your collective today and would be excited to hear from you. You can apply here.