this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
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Exciting News: Lemmy.ca is now managed by our new registered not-for-profit organization 'Fedecan' (+ resuming donations & gathering feedback) (fedecan.ca)
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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We recently crossed the first anniversary for many of us on Lemmy and the Fediverse, and we are thrilled to announce an important milestone: we have started a new registered not-for-profit organization! The organization is registered as β€˜Federated Open Communications Canada’, and we will go by 'Fedecan' in our day-to-day operations.

Over the past few months, we have been working behind the scenes on the necessary paperwork, bylaws, and other administrative tasks to get the organization rolling. Thanks to the invaluable feedback from our previous check-in, we decided to take the leap and register federally, which will allow us to operate across Canada more easily. For more details, you can check out the FAQs on our new website.

Resuming Donations

With this important step completed, we are now ready to resume accepting donations. We have set up several donation options to accommodate different preferences on convenience and fees. Our first priority is to reimburse those who have been covering server and other costs, and to set up regular financial updates. We are open to adding more donation options, so please let us know if there is an option you prefer.

Our current costs

  • Server hosting - $150/month
  • Domains registrations - $50/year
  • Non profit requirements - $500 one time

Our Next Steps:

  • Reimburse individuals who have covered server and operational costs and to set up more regular financial updates
  • Collaboratively creating guides and learning resources about Lemmy and the Fediverse (ex. how things work, data/privacy details, and best practices for moderating or running instances, etc.) + translations
  • Exploring other platforms to run. Some that are on our radar include Sublinks, Pixelfed, and Matrix
  • Developing logos, colours, and other branding details based on ideas from the community

What we want to know:

  • Do you have any questions, comments, or concerns? This will also help us expand our FAQs
  • Which other platforms would you like us to explore?
  • Do you prefer any other donation method?

We want to help build a better online experience for everyone, and that requires an organization with a strong foundation. This should be the first step in that process.

Thank you for everything so far, and we look forward to seeing you around! πŸ₯³

The Fedecan Team

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I wanna give /u/otter a big πŸ™Œ for all the work he's done here. All the fedecan site and content was him, as well as dealing with the more mundane paperwork to sort this all out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

😊

It was totally a group effort! Thankfully, I had some extra time the past few months to dedicate to this, and I learned a lot throughout the process. Really excited to get started on the next portion of the project!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Apologies if this sounds impatient, but is there any kind of update on the status of Fedecan? This was announced six months ago and there's been radio silence since then.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not at all, that's fair to ask!

Right now the focus is on moving to our new hardware, with some more details in the body of this post.

https://lemmy.ca/post/36540245

Once that's done we will be able to spin up additional services much more easily, and it will also change our estimated financial situation (donations vs. costs etc.)

We've also been busy the past few months with other things (especially me) and so I haven't been able to post updates as often as I would have wanted to. Thankfully I've got a lot more time in the new year so that should be different moving forward :)

Was there a certain aspect you wanted to hear back on? I can write up more details on that in the meantime

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the reply. I am particularly interested in Fedecan's expansion into other decentralized/federated platforms. I know the timing is dependent on the server migration, but I was wondering if there's a tentative list of what may be supported.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Pixelfed is most likely to be the next one, and we haven't ruled out anything yet. It depends on what's popular and what there is a need for (ex. someone else isn't already hosting)

We've researched and/or done some prep for Bookwyrm, Loop, Friendica, Sublinks, and Mobilizon. The exact list is uncertain, but the migration will give us lots of room to grow. I'm thinking once we announce one, we can ask what people want next.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Congratulations !

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Holy moly, this is great for ensuring both the continuity of your instance and the infrastructure necessary for federated social media! Really good plans all around.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Do you accept crypto donations? Been mining XMR to heat my house this winter and am looking to donate the proceeds.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

While it's supported by one of the donation platforms we are using, we haven't set it up yet

I'll pass this along to the team for more discussion :)

and thank you!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

How was the process for registering a non-profit?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Tbh not too bad, just some dredging through paperwork and having to write up the bylaws, etc. Vancity was pretty helpful in getting the banking setup.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Donating a monthly $5 through Github Hopefully you get some more to fill the money requirement.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Just the other day, I was thinking about how nice it would be for the team behind lemmy.ca to expand into other Fediverse services. I'm glad to see it's on the roadmap. The future is looking brighter for non-corporate social media in Canada.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (2 children)

We're excited too :)

I was thinking about how nice it would be for the team behind lemmy.ca to expand into other Fediverse services

Did you have any particular service that you might us to focus on?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Did you have any particular service that you might us to focus on?

Also not the persons you replied to but I am very interested in [email protected] (so much so, I started the community) which is a kind of Goodreads, IMDb, etc, etc replacement - basically all those sites that used to be great and have been bought out by big companies (mainly Amazon in the two named cases).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Not the person you replied to, but what about Mastodon?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

We haven't made any final decisions yet, but right now I think a lot of us already use https://mstdn.ca alongside Lemmy.

It might be a duplicated effort to spin up another mastodon, whereas we could focus our attention on new platforms + support the existing Canadian mastodon instance in other ways

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I wish I could donate now, but I broke my foot and I'm off work because of it so I don't have any income. Thank you for all your hard work to provide this service to Canadians and other people from around the world!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Great news. I use this site far more than I used Netflix before I cancelled that service so I consider a monthly donation money well spent.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You mentioned the costs for server hosting, domain registration and non-profit requirements, which is great so we have an idea of how much needs to be covered with donations going forward.

You also mentioned reimbursing people for past costs. What's the current debt?

Thanks for doing all of this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Since we took over in June 2023, truckbc has been paying personally for the server. All costs including the non profit registration (covered by me) have added up to about $2500 so far.

I don't have the number handy but going off memory, Smorks has about $1000 in donations from before he was going to transfer our way.

Ideally I'd just like to keep our finances totally public, but we're not that organized yet.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone involved in formalizing this. Really helps to know that lemmy.ca will be support and stable for a while to come. I really also love the census you did. Would love to see that continue. I've signed up to support monthly through GitHub.

I'm going to brain-dump some suggestions that come to mind for the future:

  • I really like how OpenCollective.com makes it easy to see the incoming and outgoing transactions for a fund. You've setup up a bunch of payment options already, so I don't want to add to that burden, but it would be cool to see a similar kind of reporting for Fedecan -- it doesn't have to be super sophisticated, heck even a CSV transaction log would do. It would be useful for transparency, but also so that the community can ensure Fedecan's expenses are comfortably paid for.
  • My dream is that the Fediverse provides viable alternatives to big tech's social platforms, and the first thing that comes to mind is how Facebook and its various services are the default for so many people. Facebook' Social Graph, Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, Facebook Marketplace and Instagram come to mind. If Fedecan can work towards providing a stable alternative to even one of those, it would be an effort worth supporting.
  • Currently the only other Fediverse services I use are Mastodon through social.coop, and BookWyrm through Bookrastinaing. I'd love to see Fedecan build or support essential services like that.
  • This is leaving the Fediverse scope, but I recently learned about an initiative from India where they're tackling monopolies like Uber by building services that don't take commission. NammaYatri.in is one example. They use the Beckn protocol and India's ONDC stack. In the very long term, I wonder if Fedecan could support those kinds of initiatives, to setup alternatives with healthier incentives baked in.
[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Re: open collective, we looked at it but it seemed limited for Canadians. I liked that aspect of it too, so I'm working on a grafana dashboard for us to try and do something similar.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Glad to hear it. A Grafana dashboard sounds cool!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I really also love the census you did. Would love to see that continue

I have notes for next year's version :)

It would be useful for transparency, but also so that the community can ensure Fedecan's expenses are comfortably paid for

This is good feedback! I know the team is working on improving this, and while it might take some time to streamline the process, that sounds like a solid plan

how Facebook and its various services are the default for so many people. Facebook' Social Graph, Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, Facebook Marketplace and Instagram come to mind. If Fedecan can work towards providing a stable alternative to even one of those, it would be an effort worth supporting.

Yep, I still have my account for local groups that don't exist elsewhere. It would be amazing to be able to migrate them elsewhere. I haven't explored in some time, but when I was looking around last year the private group / facebook-esque platforms had some work to do. As more people move to the fediverse, I'm hoping there's more momentum to get that work done.

Pixelfed as an alternative to Instagram is strong now. There is also Mobilizon for events, which I'll have to explore some more

and BookWyrm through Bookrastinaing. I'd love to see Fedecan build or support essential services like that.

Since I'm not as familiar with BookWyrm yet, would it be helpful to have an additional instance for it?

In the very long term, I wonder if Fedecan could support those kinds of initiatives, to setup alternatives with healthier incentives baked in.

I didn't know about NammaYatri.in, it sounds cool! Even if we don't end up supporting it directly, I expect such projects to find a good home here without the influence of shareholders/profit

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the response! I think Pixelfed would be a great addition, since it will probably be popular. I'm not so sure about BookWyrm. Its network is fairly healthy, and it's usually used as an alternative to Amazon's Goodreads, but it maybe one that is worth surveying the community about.

Looking forward to Fedecan's future!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Good to know, thank you :)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Have my little 5$ donation on github sponsors. It was just a one timer, but i will see if i can do more next time :) and just a question can someone contribute to the guides and learning resources? Because i would like to contribute there if i can.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Totally! We set up the website with collaboration in mind so that anyone can help write the guides + iteratively improve upon them. This should ease the workload and allow everyone to weigh in on the best way to present the information. The website supports internationalization, so we can have the guides in different languages too.

I'll make another post here later to get feedback on the planned structure / contribution process. I can tag you in that post if you would like :)

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Yes would definitly like to contribute and even help translate it to german if its wanted. And you probably noticed it already but i made already a pr about a guide

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yes I see it now!

I'll check about getting that merged in, thank you so much :)

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

Thanks a lot! If it isnt in your style that you imagined of the page, please let me know i will try to adjust to it then :)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This is great, but I'd also like to have an idea of what is needed to support this on an individual level. I know that isn't easy since this is just starting up, but we should have an idea of what's needed individually once things have been running for a while. Suggested donations would make it easier to know what's appropriate to keep this afloat.

In the meantime, I'll do a one-time donation partially to help build a cash reserve (and to support the year of good service I've already received).

Thanks again for all your hard work, both in running the server and in getting thos NFP set up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Agreed, but like you said it's hard to know right now. We only need around 30 people at $5/mo to cover costs, but will 30 people donate? 🀷

We'll post a funding update in a month or so once things settle in a bit.

If you're tight on cash, don't give it to us.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

FYI, the "Support Lemmy" link in the menu on lemmy.ca site is going to the general Lemmy donation page at join-lemmy.org