Archive of Our Own

Through the last year, the OTW Finance team has continued to ensure that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. Preparation for the 2025 audit of financial statements is currently ongoing!

The team has also been diligently working to meet the OTW's 2026 needs, and is proud to present to you this year's budget (access the 2026 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2026 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$58,283.93 spent so far out of US$850,040.85 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• 71.2% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also include US$500,000 to purchase new database servers, as well as US$60,000 for new firewalls and routers and US$35,000 in server related equipment to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$1,957.84 spent so far out of US$8,731.05 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$317.00 spent so far out of US$6,512.63 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
• Additionally, in 2024, the University of Amsterdam provided €1,000 (US$1,061) to Transformative Works and Cultures, which will be used to help fund the Fans of Color Research Prize. One prize was awarded in 2025.

Fanlore

• US$2,228.24 spent so far out of US$46,688.30 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0 spent so far out of US$2,927.92 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$22,123.05 spent so far out of US$136,004.81 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, outreach work by volunteers at various fan conventions, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$32,837.40 spent so far out of US$144,203.13 total this year, as of March 31, 2026.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2026 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 36.2% of our income in 2026. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of AO3's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. The growth of AO3 and other projects of the OTW also requires more volunteers and administrative support, further increasing expenses. The budget spreadsheet projects a withdrawal of US$375,000 from reserves to cover the costs that exceed the amount of revenue projected to be received this year. This amount may be withdrawn as needed during the year.
• US$147,393.22 received so far (as of March 31, 2026) and US$830,450.00 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2026 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Through the last year, the OTW Finance team has continued to ensure that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. The 2024 audit is wrapping up so the focus will soon be on year-end reconciliations!

The team has also been diligently working to meet the OTW's 2025 needs, and is proud to present to you this year's budget update (access the 2025 budget update spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2025 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$560,321.01 spent so far out of US$669,120.53 total this year, as of September 30, 2025.
• 67.4% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also include US$450,000 to purchase new servers, as well as US$44,000 in server related equipment to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$3,891.60 spent so far out of US$5,131.78 total this year, as of September 30, 2025.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$4,653.17 spent so far out of US$5,090.67 total this year, as of September 30, 2025.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
• Additionally, in 2024, the University of Amsterdam provided €1,000 (US$1,061) to Transformative Works and Cultures, which will be used to help fund the Fans of Color Research Prize. Three prizes have been awarded in 2025.

Fanlore

• US$31,602.78 spent so far out of US$37,565.43 total this year, as of September 30, 2025.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$427.92 spent so far out of US$2,927.92 total this year, as of September 30, 2025.
• Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$63,522.51 spent so far out of US$137,998.95 total this year, as of September 30, 2025.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, outreach work by volunteers at various fan conventions, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$116,916.42 spent so far out of US$134,924.67 total this year, as of September 30, 2025.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2025 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 41.1% of our income in 2025. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of AO3’s servers, which will significantly increase server equipment and server hosting expenses. The growth of AO3 and other projects of the OTW also requires more volunteers and administrative support, further increasing expenses. The budget spreadsheet projects a withdrawal of US$205,000 from reserves to cover the costs that exceed the amount of revenue projected to be received this year. This amount may be withdrawn as needed during the year.
• US$602,410.00 received so far (as of September 30, 2025) and US$790,202.01 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2025 budget update in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Through the last year, the OTW Finance team has continued to ensure that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. Preparation for the 2024 audit of financial statements is currently ongoing!

The team has also been diligently working to meet the OTW's 2025 needs, and is proud to present to you this year's budget (access the 2025 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2025 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$286,821.53 spent so far out of US$625,370.81 total this year, as of March 31, 2025.
• 67.7% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also include US$430,000 to purchase new servers, as well as US$20,000 in server related equipment to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$1,916.55 spent so far out of US$7,382.51 total this year, as of March 31, 2025.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$626.80 spent so far out of US$2,564.30 total this year, as of March 31, 2025.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
• Additionally, in 2024, the University of Amsterdam provided €1,000 (US$1,061) to Transformative Works and Cultures, which will be used to help fund the Fans of Color Research Prize. One prize was awarded in 2025.

Fanlore

• US$15,556.57 spent so far out of US$34,188.35 total this year, as of March 31, 2025.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$72.45 spent so far out of US$2,572.45 total this year, as of March 31, 2025.
• Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$13,516.79 spent so far out of US$122,896.79 total this year, as of March 31, 2025.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, outreach work by volunteers at various fan conventions, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$33,497.25 spent so far out of US$127,869.36 total this year, as of March 31, 2025.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2025 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 33.0% of our income in 2025. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. The growth of the Archive and other projects of the OTW also requires more volunteers and administrative support, further increasing expenses. The budget spreadsheet projects a withdrawal of US$250,000 from reserves to cover the costs that exceed the amount of revenue projected to be received this year. This amount may be withdrawn as needed during the year.
• US$104,626.71 received so far (as of March 31, 2025) and US$680,350.00 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2025 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Cesy, who volunteers with the Finance Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

Finance committee manages paying bills and keeping us legally compliant, publishing the accounts and getting them audited, filling in the right forms so we remain registered as a non-profit and can collect employer matching donations. We work with the rest of the org to budget our money.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

Very variable - most weeks will be a mix of answering emails within the committee or from other committees, replying to a discussion in committee group chat, or attending a committee meeting and taking minutes. We review payment requests that come in from other committees to determine if the requests are in line with the OTW’s financial policies and procedures. We may have follow-up questions with the volunteer who requested the item, or send it to Board for their review.

Other weeks will be busier if it's budget time and we need to check spreadsheets to compare figures, email out to all the committee chairs, or proofread posts. Other members of the committee do monthly bookkeeping and record various accounting transactions, save all of the relevant documentation needed such as invoices or receipts, produce the annual financial statements, work with the auditors for the annual audit report or sort our state registrations. In the USA, we have to be registered both federally and in every single state that we might receive donations from, which needs a lot of paperwork to be signed and posted, though some states accept forms online these days.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I originally joined in 2009 while Archive of Our Own (AO3) was still in closed beta, as l'd been a coding volunteer for Dreamwidth, and they mentioned AO3 as being another friendly project. I wanted to improve my programming skills and spend time with fannish friends doing something useful. Over the years, l've held a variety of roles within the OTW. I rejoined Finance after there had been a change of Treasurer and Board to help the new team find missing info, document what had been done previously and sort things out.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

Dealing with people - we have many different cultures represented, lots of styles of business and volunteer communication, and it’s easy to make a mistake and upset people. A moment of carelessness or tactlessness can take a lot of time and effort to recover from and repair the relationship.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I read a lot of fic. I’m mostly an old-school lurker, I try and kudos or comment or bookmark or rec. I write a little, I’ve tried recording podfic, and I watch vids occasionally. I’m known among my friends for picking up new fandoms by osmosis and never watching canon, because I struggle to watch long-form TV or films.

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Throughout the year, the OTW Finance team has continued its work of ensuring that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and all standard accounting guidelines and financial compliance requirements met. Preparation for the audit of 2023 financial statements continues!

The team has also been diligently working on the 2024 budget update and are happy to present it here: (access the 2024 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2024 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$250,381.02 spent so far out of US$416,441.01 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• 55.1% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also include US$120,000 to purchase new servers, as well as US$15,000 in additional server related equipment to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$6,899.70 spent so far out of US$9,344.33 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$3,488.74 spent so far out of US$5,444.70 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
• Additionally, the University of Amsterdam provided £1,000 (US$1,061) to Transformative Works and Cultures in 2023, which will be used to help fund the Fans of Color Research Prize.

Fanlore

• US$13,986.47 spent so far out of US$24,160.27 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$304.50 spent so far out of US$2,892.15 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$107,433.57 spent so far out of US$152,399.47 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, outreach work by volunteers at various fan conventions, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$111,698.97 spent so far out of US$147,099.75 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2024 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 33.8% of our income in 2024. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. As the Archive and other projects of the OTW grow, we also spend more on tools and technology to support our volunteers, such as the tools used by various committees to communicate with and aid users and to track internal projects, further increasing expenses.
• US$651,741.98 received so far (as of September 30, 2024) and US$762,433.91 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2024 budget update in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

Through the last year, the OTW Finance team has continued to ensure that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. Preparation for the 2023 audit of financial statements is currently ongoing!

The team has also been diligently working to meet the OTW's 2024 needs, and is proud to present to you this year's budget (access the 2024 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2024 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$36,323.75 spent so far out of US$317,388.37 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• 47.2% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also include US$120,000 to purchase new servers, as well as US$20,000 in server related equipment to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$1,814.10 spent so far out of US$10,618.35 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$314.00 spent so far out of US$4,220.80 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
• Additionally, the University of Amsterdam provided €1,000 (US$1,061) to Transformative Works and Cultures, which will be used to help fund the Fans of Color Research Prize.

Fanlore

• US$1,603.11 spent so far out of US$18,249.93 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$2,947.20 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$20,537.62 spent so far out of US$159,357.74 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, outreach work by volunteers at various fan conventions, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$39,976.35 spent so far out of US$161,831.47 total this year, as of February 29, 2024.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2024 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 22.4% of our income in 2024. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. The growth of the Archive and other projects of the OTW also requires more volunteers and administrative support, further increasing expenses. The budget spreadsheet projects a withdrawal of US$230,000 from reserves to cover the costs that exceed the amount of revenue projected to be received this year. This amount may be withdrawn as needed during the year.
• US$78,066.43 received so far (as of February 29, 2024) and US$448,320.00 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2024 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

Throughout the year, the OTW Finance team has continued its work of ensuring that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. The team also revamped the accounting structure to better reflect the OTW's financial activity. Preparation for the audit of 2022 financial statements continues!

The team has also been diligently working on the 2023 budget update and are happy to present it here: (access the 2023 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2023 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$237,279.97 spent so far out of US$336,514.21 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• 47.7% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also include US$64,000 to purchase new servers to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$4,081.74 spent so far out of US$4,379.42 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$4,151.48 spent so far out of US$4,279.48 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tool (access all program expenses).

Fanlore

• US$12,575.29 spent so far out of US$17,903.54 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$491.06 spent so far out of US$5,491.06 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Con Outreach

• US$1,564.95 spent so far out of US$3,684.95 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• Budgeted expenses include convention outreach activities on behalf of the OTW, which include convention registration fees, tabling fees, and related presentation materials (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$68,285.08 spent so far out of US$121,509.38 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$69,179.75 spent so far out of US$212,988.32 total this year, as of September 30, 2023.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2023 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 47% of our income in 2023. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. As the Archive and other projects of the OTW grow, we also spend more on tools and technology to support our volunteers, such as the tools used by Support and Policy & Abuse to communicate with and aid users, further increasing expenses.
• US$621,454.87 received so far (as of September 30, 2023) and US$693,989.51 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2023 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

During the last year, the OTW Finance team has continued its work of ensuring that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. Preparation for the 2022 audit of financial statements is currently ongoing!

The team has also been diligently working to meet the OTW's 2023 needs, and is proud to present to you this year's budget (access the 2023 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2023 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$99,854.48 spent so far out of US$295,285.76 total this year, as of February 28, 2023.
• 59.4% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also include US$74,000 to purchase new servers, as well as US$77,000 in server related equipment to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$2,232.86 spent so far out of US$5,526.16 total this year, as of February 28, 2023.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$847.70 spent so far out of US$3,509.70 total this year, as of February 28, 2023.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Fanlore

• US$6,222.79 spent so far out of US$16,201.99 total this year, as of February 28, 2023.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$5,258.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2023.
• Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Con Outreach

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$2,000.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2023.
• Budgeted expenses include US$1,000.00 for convention outreach activities on behalf of the OTW, which include convention tabling fees, volunteer attendance, and related presentation materials, as well as US$1,000.00 for convention giveaways (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$9,235.91 spent so far out of US$79,625.11 total this year, as of February 28, 2023.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$21,093.22 spent so far out of US$89,172.96 total this year, as of February 28, 2023.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2023 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 27% of our income in 2023. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. The growth of the Archive and other projects of the OTW also requires more volunteers and administrative support, further increasing expenses. The budget spreadsheet projects a withdrawal of US$130,000 from reserves to cover the costs that exceed the amount of revenue projected to be received this year. This amount may be withdrawn as needed during the year.
• US$69,477.12 received so far (as of February 28, 2023) and US$370,320.00 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2023 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Throughout the year, the OTW Finance team has continued its work of ensuring that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. The team also revamped the accounting structure to better reflect the OTW's financial activity. Preparation for the audit of 2021 financial statements continues!

The team has also been diligently working on the 2022 budget update and are happy to present it here (access the 2022 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2022 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$290,688.25 spent so far out of US$376,186.44 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
• 66.7% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's updated estimated AO3 expenses include a planned US$42,000 for a modest expansion of server capacity to continue to handle site traffic growth efficiently, as well as to replace existing equipment.

Open Doors

• US$1,234.42 spent so far out of US$3,459.98 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
• Open Doors' expenses include hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, shipping costs associated with preserving fanworks, and ticketing software (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$275.00 spent so far out of US$2,349.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees (access all program expenses).

Fanlore

• US$14,564.40 spent so far out of US$19,276.90 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
• Fanlore's expenses are a citation tool for the wiki, as well as its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$4,000.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
• Legal's expenses consist of filing fees and other costs associated with conferences and hearings (access all program expenses).

Con Outreach

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$780.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
• Budgeted expenses include WorldCon memberships for volunteers to attend and represent the OTW at ChiCon (access all program expenses).

Grant for F. Coppa book on the History of Fanvidding

• US$660.00 spent so far out of US$660.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
• The money for this grant comes from a donation made to the OTW in 2020 for the specific purpose of covering costs related to the production of Francesca Coppa's book on the history of fanvidding. The University of Michigan has published the book and it is freely accessible online now. Since the full amount of the grant has been spent and its purpose has been accomplished, the grant is now closed.
• Remaining expenses were spent on the final proofreading and creating a table of contents for the book (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$48,796.15 spent so far out of US$80,962.15 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$27,985.04 spent so far out of US$76,147.32 total this year, as of July 31, 2022.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication, management, encrypted document storage, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2022 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 55% of our income in 2022. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• US$512,358.90 received so far (as of July 31, 2022) and US$600,118.51 is projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on October 15 at 8pm UTC (what time is that in my timezone?).

To download the OTW's 2022 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

During the last year, the OTW Finance team has continued its work of ensuring that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. The team also revamped the accounting Chart of Accounts to better reflect the OTW's financial activity. Preparation for the 2021 audit of financial statements is currently ongoing!

The team has also been diligently working to meet the OTW's 2022 needs, and is proud to present to you this year's budget (access the 2022 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2022 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$33,231.72 spent so far out of US$582,695.34 total this year, as of February 28, 2022.
• 76.9% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also contain US$15,000.00 in contractor costs to do an external audit of the AO3 site to find any security issues that may need to be fixed.
• Additionally, AO3 expenses include a planned US$430,000.00 for an expansion of server capacity to handle expected site traffic growth through the year. It is possible that some parts of this activity will be postponed to next year depending on various circumstances; the updated budget to be released later this year will provide additional information.

Open Doors

• US$147.88 spent so far out of US$2,777.61 total this year, as of February 28, 2022.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$2,349.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2022.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees (access all program expenses).

Fanlore

• US$1,051.78 spent so far out of US$30,293.40 total this year, as of February 28, 2022.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$2,500.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2022.
• Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings (access all program expenses).

Con Outreach

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$500.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2022.
• Budgeted expenses include US$100.00 for producing flyers for virtual cons and US$400.00 for other convention outreach activities on behalf of the OTW (access all program expenses).

Grant for F. Coppa book on the History of Fanvidding

• US$660.00 spent so far out of US$660.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2022.
• The money for this grant comes from a donation made to the OTW in 2020 for the specific purpose of covering costs related to the production of Francesca Coppa's book on the history of fanvidding. The University of Michigan has published the book and it is freely accessible online now. Since the full amount of the grant has been spent and its purpose has been accomplished, the grant is now closed.
• Remaining expenses were spent on the final proofreading and creating a table of contents for the book (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

• US$6,633.17 spent so far out of US$56,473.40 total this year, as of February 28, 2022.
• Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$2,266.39 spent so far out of US$79,536.03 total this year, as of February 28, 2022.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2022 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 37% of our income in 2022. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. The growth of the Archive and other projects of the OTW also requires more volunteers and administrative support, further increasing expenses. The budget spreadsheet projects a withdrawal of US$570,000.00 from reserves to cover the costs that exceed the amount of revenue to be received this year. This amount may be withdrawn as needed during the year.
• US$55,432.30 received so far (as of February 28, 2022) and US$190,290.00 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2022 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

During 2021, the OTW Finance team has continued its work of ensuring that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. Preparation for the 2020 audit of financial statements continues!

Meanwhile, the team has also been diligently working on the 2021 budget update and are happy to present it here (access the 2021 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2021 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$125,025.02 spent so far out of US$227,075.48 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• 62.1% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses include a planned US$100,000.00 for an expansion of server capacity to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

• US$450.48 spent so far out of US$1,160.85 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$339.00 spent so far out of US$1,839.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees (access all program expenses).

Fanlore

• US$5,527.77 spent so far out of US$10,697.58 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$2,500.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• Legal's expenses consist of filing fees for various activities, including OTW trademarks (access all program expenses).

Grant for F. Coppa book on the History of Fanvidding

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$598.32 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• The money for this grant comes from a donation made to the OTW in 2020 for the specific purpose of covering costs related to the production of Francesca Coppa's book on the history of fanvidding. The University of Michigan will publish the book and host the fanvids, as well as make it accessible for free online for everyone to read and use.
• Budgeted expenses are for additional proofreading and publication (access all program expenses).

Fundraising

• US$31,423.46 spent so far out of US$62,647.46 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• Our fundraising expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$12,448.35 spent so far out of US$59,264.41 total this year, as of July 31, 2021.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2021 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 57% of our income in 2021. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which will significantly increase server equipment and server hosting expenses in the coming years. The growth of the Archive and other projects of the OTW also requires more administrative support, further increasing expenses.
• US$482,542.83 received so far (as of July 31, 2021) and US$542,972.85 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on October 16 at 8pm UTC (what time is that in my timezone?).

Thanks for joining the chat!

To download the OTW's 2021 budget update in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

During the last year, the OTW Finance team has continued its work of ensuring that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and standard accounting procedures met. Preparation for the 2020 audit of financial statements is currently ongoing!

The team has also been diligently working to meet the OTW's 2021 needs, and is proud to present to you this year's budget (access the 2021 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2021 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$26,728.93 spent so far out of US$416,252.39 total this year, as of February 28, 2021.
• 75.0% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also contain US$115,000.00 in contractor costs to finish up work on moving AO3 collection searching to Elasticsearch, to upgrade the Archive to Rails 6.1, and to do an external audit of the AO3 site to find any security issues that need to be fixed.
• Additionally, AO3 expenses include a planned US$203,000.00 for an expansion of server capacity to handle expected site traffic growth through the year. It is possible that some parts of this activity will be postponed to next year depending on various circumstances; the updated budget to be released later this year will provide additional information.

Open Doors

• US$128.88 spent so far out of US$864.17 total this year, as of February 28, 2021.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$339.00 spent so far out of US$1,831.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2021.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees (access all program expenses).

Fanlore

• US$1,017.54 spent so far out of US$15,251.66 total this year, as of February 28, 2021.
• Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$5,000.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2021.
• Legal's expenses consist of filing fees and registration fees for conferences and hearings (access all program expenses).

Con Outreach

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$500.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2021.
• Budgeted expenses include US$100.00 for producing flyers for virtual cons and US$400.00 for other convention outreach activities on behalf of the OTW (access all program expenses).

Grant for F. Coppa book on the History of Fanvidding

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$598.32 total this year, as of February 28, 2021.
• The money for this grant comes from a donation made to the OTW in 2020 for the specific purpose of covering costs related to the production of Francesca Coppa's book on the history of fanvidding. The University of Michigan will publish the book and host the fanvids, as well as make it accessible for free online for everyone to read and use.
• Budgeted expenses are for additional proofreading and publication (access all program expenses).

Fundraising

• US$5,657.33 spent so far out of US$52,564.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2021.
• Our fundraising expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$3,154.33 spent so far out of US$61,911.81 total this year, as of February 28, 2021.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2021 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 35% of our income in 2021. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. The growth of the Archive and other projects of the OTW also requires more volunteers and administrative support, further increasing expenses. The budget spreadsheet projects a withdrawal of US$195,000.00 from reserves to cover the costs that exceed the amount of revenue to be received this year. This amount may be withdrawn as needed during the year.
• US$55,553.19 received so far (as of February 28, 2021) and US$360,575.00 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on April 10 at 8pm UTC (what time is that in my timezone?).

Click through here to access the chatroom where the meeting will be held. Come chat with us, and bring your questions!

To download the OTW's 2021 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

During 2020, the OTW Finance team has continued to review the organization's financial transactions for accuracy and completeness. Additional tasks have included paying the bills, completing the audit of the 2019 financials, and ensuring that standard accounting procedures were met.

In the meantime, the team has also been diligently working on the update to the 2020 budget, and are proud to present it here! (access the 2020 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2020 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$76,703.46 spent so far out of US$383,327.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• 68.2% of the OTW's expenses go toward maintaining AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year, US$18,000 in contractor costs have been spent on separating AO3 administrative roles in the background to make volunteer work more efficient. Other budgeted AO3 expenses include an additional US$100,000.00 in contractor costs for work on moving AO3 collection searching to Elasticsearch and upgrading to Rails 6.
• Additionally, AO3 expenses include the purchase of frontend servers, database servers, and VM servers for roughly US$147,000.00. The new database servers will expand the ability of our infrastructure to store works for AO3 and also increase the number of pages served to users. The old servers will be repurposed as application servers, which generate site pages.
• Also planned is the installation of a third server rack later in the year to give AO3 (and OTW websites) more power capacity and reduce the impact of server failures. Adding this rack will involve setup costs of roughly US$8,000.00, and will increase our monthly server costs by US$2,200.00
• Other budgeted costs include US$33,000.00 for a Systems contractor, who will do some work for various OTW projects, including AO3.

Fanlore

• US$2,527.97 spent so far out of US$13,659.57 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• Fanlore expenses are mostly its allocation of server purchases, maintenance, and colocation costs, in addition to Fanlore's web domain renewals (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$331.00 spent so far out of US$1,831.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, and publishing and storage fees (access all program expenses).

Open Doors

• US$364.01 spent so far out of US$927.78 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$2,500.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• Legal's budgeted expenses consist of filing fees (access all program expenses).

Con Outreach

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$500.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• Budgeted expenses include US$100.00 for printing flyers and US$400.00 for other convention outreach activities on behalf of the OTW (access all program expenses).

Fundraising

• US$44,771.92 spent so far out of US$107,248.20 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• Our fundraising expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with current and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$10,475.36 spent so far out of US$52,404.14 total this year, as of July 31, 2020.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2020 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive most of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 71% of our income in 2020. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Given your generosity in the past several drives, we are planning to transfer an additional US$150,000 into our reserves, to be kept in store for a rainy day. Thanks to this, we are exploring alternative revenue sources to supplement your donations. We have made progress in a search for a suitable investment method and investment specialist for a small nonprofit organization like the OTW; we aim to fully set up a low-risk, conservative investment portfolio by the end of 2021.
• Your generosity during the April 2020 drive especially has left the OTW with the ability to begin planning for the fiscal feasibility of large scale projects. We look forward to sharing these with you once we figure out the legal and practical logistics!
• We also received our first restricted donation: US$5,161.62 from HP Education Fanon, Inc., a fellow 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to promoting the benefits of reading that sadly ceased operations in 2018. The donation will go toward supporting Francesca Coppa's book on the history of fan vidding for the University of Michigan Press, which is currently in production. The money will be used to pay for the University of Michigan to host the fanvids referenced in the book, as well as assist in making the book free for everyone to read and use.
• US$665,975.09 received so far (as of July 31, 2020) and US$754,362.62 total projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on October 10 at 8pm UTC (what time is that in my timezone?).

To download the OTW's 2020 budget update in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

Throughout 2019, the OTW Finance team worked in the background to make sure that all of the organization's bills were paid, taxes were filed, and standard accounting procedures were met. Preparations for the 2019 financial statements and audit are currently underway!

In the meantime, the team has also been diligently working to meet the OTW's 2020 needs, and are proud to present to you this year's budget (access the 2020 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2020 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$11,326.91 spent so far out of US$503,414.15 total this year, as of February 29, 2020.
• 79.7% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses also contains US$100,000.00 in contractor costs for work on moving AO3 collection searching to Elasticsearch and upgrading to Rails 6.
• Additionally, AO3 expenses tentatively include a planned significant server upgrade and expansion of roughly US$255,000.00. New database servers will expand the ability of the Archive to serve pages and search results to users with fewer connection issues. The old servers will be repurposed as storage for the new servers. It is possible this activity will be deferred to next year depending on various circumstances; the updated budget to be released later this year will provide additional information.
• Other budgeted costs include US$33,000.00 for a Systems contractor, who will do some work for various OTW projects, including the Archive.

Fanlore

• US$533.83 spent so far out of US$7,018.28 total this year, as of February 29, 2020.
• Fanlore expenses are mostly its allocation of server purchases, maintenance and colocation costs, in addition to Fanlore's web domain renewals (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$331.00 spent so far out of US$1,831.00 total this year, as of February 29, 2020.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, and publishing and storage fees (access all program expenses).

Open Doors

• US$139.66 spent so far out of US$871.83 total this year, as of February 29, 2020.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$5,000.00 total this year, as of February 29, 2020.
• Legal's expenses consist of filing fees and travel expenses for conferences and hearings (access all program expenses).

Con Outreach

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$500.00 total this year, as of February 29, 2020.
• Budgeted expenses include US$100.00 for printing flyers and US$400.00 for other convention outreach activities on behalf of the OTW (access all program expenses).

Fundraising

• US$2,891.28 spent so far out of US$59,187.18 total this year, as of February 29, 2020.
• Our fundraising expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$6,777.87 spent so far out of US$53,657.25 total this year, as of February 29, 2020.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2020 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive most of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 58% of our income in 2020. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Given your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount in reserves, which we plan to keep in store for a rainy day. Thanks to this, we can explore alternative revenue sources to supplement your donations. The Finance team has made progress in its search for a suitable investment method for a small non-profit organization like the OTW and aims to fully set up a low-risk, conservative investment portfolio by the end of 2020.
• The reserves also help bolster us in years when we’re planning larger than usual purchases. As mentioned previously, we have plans to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which significantly increase our expenses for this year. Some of the forecasted expenses outlined in this budget may not take place before the end of the year, due to various constraints. To account for this uncertainty, even though all expenses we anticipate are described in the budget spreadsheet, we have projected a withdrawal of US$111,000.00 from our reserves to cover the amount corresponding to the less likely expenses. This additional amount may be withdrawn from reserves on an as-needed basis during the year. Our budget update, which will be published in October, will contain more precise information about which expenses will take place in 2020.
• US$49,079.71 received so far (as of February 29, 2020) and US$520,900.00 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on April 25 at 8pm UTC (what time is that in my timezone?).

Here is the link to the chat transcript. Thank you for participating!

To download the OTW's 2020 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

Earlier in the year, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) published its 2019 budget. With the end of the year drawing closer, we’d like to issue an update on our financial activity for the remainder of the year, and how our plans have altered or progressed.

Our Finance team continues to track the OTW’s financial activity, prepare financial statements and reports, and ensure compliance with accounting standards and regulations. We’ve worked to improve and document our processes, help the OTW plan its financial future, and are close to concluding the annual audit of our 2018 financial statements.

Without further ado, here’s our updated budget for 2019 (download the budget spreadsheet for more information):

2019 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$74,984.28 spent so far out of US$334,351.23 total this year, as of July 31, 2019.
• 74.2% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools and various systems-related licences (access all program expenses).
• This year's AO3 expenses include US$30,000.00 in contractor costs for upgrades and security testing, of which US$15,000.00 has already been spent to upgrade Ruby for the Archive.
• Additionally, AO3 expenses include a significant server overhaul and expansion of roughly US$177,000.00. New virtualisation servers will replace the current equipment, making testing and deployment of code for the Archive much smoother. The old servers will be repurposed as storage for the new servers. Other new servers will expand the Archive's capacity to serve pages and search results to users with fewer connection issues.
• Other anticipated costs include US$33,000.00 for a Systems contractor, who will do some work for the Archive's hardware infrastructure.

Fanlore

• US$1,477.22 spent so far out of US$10,374.19 total this year, as of July 31, 2019.
• Fanlore expenses are mostly its allocation of server purchases and maintenance and colocation costs, in addition to Fanlore web domains (access all program expenses).
• The new virtualisation servers mentioned above will also serve Fanlore pages and store Fanlore wiki backups.

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC)

• US$275.00 spent so far out of US$1,833.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2019.
• Transformative Works and Cultures’ expenses are the journal's website hosting, and publishing and storage fees (access all program expenses).

Open Doors

• US$244.20 spent so far out of US$1,294.54 total this year, as of July 31, 2019.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$5,000.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2019.
• Legal's expenses consist of filing fees and travel expenses for conferences and hearings, when and if they are required (access all program expenses).

Con Outreach

• US$0.00 spent so far out of US$500.00 total this year, as of July 31, 2019.
• Budgeted expenses include US$100 for printing flyers and US$400 for other convention outreach activities on behalf of the OTW (access all program expenses).

Fundraising

• US$23,100.09 spent so far out of US$46,800.09 total this year, as of July 31, 2019.
• Our fundraising expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation; thank-you gift purchases and shipping; and the tools used to host the OTW’s membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$17,051.93 spent so far out of US$50,440.80 total this year, as of July 31, 2019.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2019 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive most of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 68.7% of our income in 2019. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Given your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount in reserves, which we plan to keep in store for a rainy day. Thanks to this, we can explore alternative revenue sources to supplement your donations. The Finance team has made progress in its search for a suitable investment method for a small non-profit organization like the OTW and aims to fully set up a low-risk, conservative investment portfolio by the end of 2019.
• US$346,650.73 received so far (as of July 31, 2019) and US$546,750.73 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on October 13 8PM UTC (what time is that in my timezone?).

Here is the link to the open chat! Come chat with us, and bring your questions! The chat is now over. To contact the Finance Committee with any quesitons, please fill out the form on our website<.a>.

To download the OTW’s updated budget for 2019 in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

2018 was another productive and busy year for the OTW Finance team. We continue to work in the background to make sure that the bills are paid, the record keeping is accurate, and standard accounting procedures are met. Preparations for the 2018 financial statements and audit are also underway!

And now, we present the budget for 2019 (access the 2019 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2019 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$12,242.60 spent so far out of US$418,104.06 total this year, as of February 28, 2019.
• 81.2% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses include US$110,000 in contractor costs for upgrades and security testing.
• Additionally, AO3 expenses include a significant server overhaul and expansion of roughly US$177,000. New virtualisation servers will replace the current equipment, making testing and deployment of code for the Archive much smoother. The old servers will be repurposed as storage for the new servers. Other new servers will expand the Archive's capacity to serve pages and search results to users with fewer connection issues.
• Other anticipated costs include US$33,000 for a Systems contractor, who will do some work for the Archive's hardware infrastructure.

Fanlore

• US$329.34 spent so far out of US$6,738.97 total this year, as of February 28, 2019.
• Fanlore expenses are mostly its allocation of server purchases, maintenance and colocation costs, in addition to Fanlore's web domain renewals (access all program expenses).
• The new virtualisation servers mentioned above will also serve Fanlore pages and store Fanlore wiki backups.

Transformative Works and Cultures

• US$275.00 spent so far out of US$1,833.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2019.
• Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, and publishing and storage fees (access all program expenses).

Open Doors

• US$91.82 spent so far out of US$936.17 total this year, as of February 28, 2019.
• Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0 spent so far out of US$5,000.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2019.
• Legal's expenses consist of filing fees and travel expenses for conferences and hearings (access all program expenses).

Con Outreach

• US$0 spent so far out of US$500.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2019.
• Budgeted expenses include US$100 for printing flyers and US$400 for other convention outreach activities on behalf of the OTW (access all program expenses).

Fundraising

• US$2,296.25 spent so far out of US$31,460.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2019.
• Our fundraising expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$2,785.99 spent so far out of US$50,471.80 total this year, as of February 28, 2019.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2019 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive most of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 67% of our income in 2019. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Given your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount in reserves, which we plan to keep in store for a rainy day. Thanks to this, we can explore alternative revenue sources to supplement your donations. The Finance team has made progress in its search for a suitable investment method for a small non-profit organization like the OTW and aims to fully set up a low-risk, conservative investment portfolio by the end of 2019.
• The reserves also help bolster us in years when we’re planning larger than usual purchases. As mentioned previously, we have plans to replace old server hardware over the next few months as well as purchase new server hardware, which significantly increase our expenses for this year. Some of the forecasted expenses outlined in this budget may not take place before the end of the year, due to various constraints. To account for this uncertainty, even though all expenses we anticipate are described in the budget spreadsheet, we have projected a withdrawal of US$96,000 from our reserves to cover the amount corresponding to the less likely expenses. This additional amount may be withdrawn from reserves on an as-needed basis during the year. Our budget update, which will be published in October, will contain more precise information about which expenses will take place in 2019.
• US$23,840.99 received so far (as of February 28, 2019) and US$419,475 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on April 6 at 8pm UTC(what time is that in my timezone?).

Here is the link to the chatroom! Come chat with us, and bring your questions!

To download the OTW's 2019 budget in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

Earlier in the year, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) published its 2018 budget. With the end of the year drawing closer, we’d like to release an update on our financial activity for the remainder of the year, and how our plans have altered or progressed.

Our Finance team continues to track the OTW’s financial activity, prepare financial statements and reports, and ensure compliance with accounting standards and regulations. We’ve worked to improve and document our processes, help the OTW plan its financial future, and are close to concluding the annual audit of our 2017 financial statements.

Without further ado, here’s our updated budget for 2018 (download the budget spreadsheet for more information):

2018 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$176,374.10 spent so far out of US$265,301.92 total this year, as of August 31, 2018.
• 73.9% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools and various systems-related licences (access all program expenses).
• This year, we implemented a significant server overhaul costing about US$115,000. This overhaul focused on new database servers for AO3 works, comments, and activities, as well as a new server rack for them to live on. The new servers also increased our monthly colocation expenses, while the old machines are being repurposed as application servers, which generate the Archive's pages and serve them to users.
• Previously, US$100,000 was budgeted for contractor services. However, testing, fixing bugs, and tweaking behavior for our Elasticsearch update took considerably longer than expected, giving us less time than we'd hoped to merge code written by contractors into our code base this year. Therefore, we chose not to contract out any more projects and focus on deploying the code we'd already paid for and that had been submitted by our volunteers.

Fanlore

• US$5,277.80 spent so far out of US$7,890.77 total this year, as of August 31, 2018.
• Fanlore expenses are mostly its allocation of server purchase, maintenance and colocation costs, in addition to related licenses and Fanlore web domains (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC)

• US$2,520.54 spent so far out of US$5,941.53 total this year, as of August 31, 2018.
• Transformative Works and Cultures’ expenses are its allotment of server costs, as well as the journal’s publishing and storage fees (access all program expenses).
• This year, hosting of the TWC issues will be moved offsite to a company that specializes in handling the open source software used by the journal, for an annual cost of US$1,500. There is also US$1,000 budgeted for travel to speak at the 2018 Fan Studies conference.

Open Doors

• US$540.72 spent so far out of US$1,009.14 total this year, as of August 31, 2018.
• This year’s expenses for Open Doors are hosting, backup and domain costs for archives imported by Open Doors (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$2,670.02 spent so far out of US$2,670.02 total this year, as of August 31, 2018.
• Legal’s expenses consist of filing fees and travel expenses for conferences and hearings. US$1,500 was spent in January to file a WIPO Dispute fee because someone else registered a domain address too similar to AO3’s. (access all program expenses).

Con Outreach

• US$50.00 spent so far out of US$50.00 total this year, as of August 31, 2018.
• The OTW passed out flyers at the 2018 San Diego Comic Con (access all program expenses).

Fundraising

• US$13,446.80 spent so far out of US$27,546.80 total this year, as of August 31, 2018.
• Our fundraising expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation; thank-you gift purchases and shipping; and the tools used to host the OTW’s membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$39,285.43 spent so far out of US$48,598.58 total this year, as of August 31, 2018.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2018 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive most of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 73% of our income in 2018. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Given your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount in reserves, which we plan to keep in store for a rainy day. Thanks to this, we can explore alternative revenue sources to supplement your donations. The Finance team and the OTW board have decided on a conservative investment portfolio for a small portion of our funds to start with, which will place the initial investment at as low a risk as possible. This move is long overdue, and we're currently working on creating a solid policy regarding investment and usage of our reserves in place.
• The reserves also help bolster us in years when we're planning larger than usual purchases. As mentioned earlier, we have already replaced our old server hardware, and had to withdraw money from reserves to aid in the purchase of servers. However, with the revenue from the rest of the year, which includes the October drive, the net amount used from reserves should be US$30,000.
• US$213,449.59 received so far (as of August 31, 2018) and US$356,775.34 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on October 14th from 6 to 7PM UTC (what time is that in my timezone?).

Here is the link to the chatroom. Come chat with us, and bring your questions!

To download the OTW’s updated budget for 2018 in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

2017 was another busy and productive year for the OTW’s Finance team! We’ve continued to improve the efficiency of the organization’s financial policies and adherence to standard accounting practices. We started our first ever audit of financial statements, which concluded in early 2018. You can check out our audited financial statements for 2015 and 2016 on the OTW Finance page. We're now preparing for the audit of our 2017 financial statements, which should start within a few weeks.

Without further ado, here's our budget for 2018 (download the budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2018 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$13,334.02 spent so far out of US$266,032.07 total this year, as of February 28, 2018.
• 75.1% of the OTW’s expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools and various systems-related licences (access all program expenses).
• This year's projected AO3 expenses include US$100,000 in contractor costs. We're quite pleased with our contractor’s work on the Archive's Rails and Elasticsearch upgrades and look forward to continuing to work with them on other projects.
• In addition to contracting costs, AO3 expenses include a significant server overhaul to the tune of around US$96,000 in total. This overhaul focuses on new database servers for AO3 works, comments, and other activities, as well as a new server rack for them to live on. The new servers should also increase our colocation expenses, while the old machines will be repurposed as application servers, which generate the Archive's pages and serve them to users.

Fanlore

• US$257.44 spent so far out of US$4,897.97 total this year, as of February 28, 2018.
• Fanlore expenses are mostly its allocation of server purchase, maintenance and colocation costs, in addition to related licenses and Fanlore web domains (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC)

• US$418.81 spent so far out of US$2,993.99 total this year, as of February 28, 2018.
• Transformative Works and Cultures’ expenses are its allotment of server costs, as well as the journal’s publishing and storage fees (access all program expenses).

Open Doors

• US$94.16 spent so far out of US$1,257.11 total this year, as of February 28, 2018.
• This year’s expenses for Open Doors are hosting, backup and domain costs for archives imported by Open Doors (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$1,500.00 spent so far out of US$5,000.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2018.
• Legal’s expenses consist of filing fees and travel expenses for conferences and hearings. US$1,500 was spent in January to file a WIPO Dispute fee because someone else registered a domain address too similar to AO3’s. (access all program expenses).

Fundraising

• US$1,751.46 spent so far out of US$26,135.00 total this year, as of February 28, 2018.
• Our fundraising expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation; thank-you gift purchases and shipping; and the tools used to host the OTW’s membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$2,023.59 spent so far out of US$47,823.40 total this year, as of February 28, 2018.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and auditing, as well as communication and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2018 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive most of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 79% of our income in 2018. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, Amazon Smile, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
• Given your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount in reserves, which we plan to keep in store for a rainy day. Thanks to this, we can explore alternative revenue sources to supplement your donations. The Finance team and the OTW board have decided on a conservative investment portfolio for a small portion of our funds to start with, which will not place the initial investment in any risk. This move is long overdue, and we're glad to have a solid policy regarding investment and usage of our reserves in place.
• The reserves also help bolster us in years when we’re planning larger than usual purchases. As mentioned previously, we have plans to replace old server hardware over the next few months, which significantly bolster our expenses for this year. Our current projected expenses for this year exceed estimated 2018 revenues by roughly US$30,000. The additional amount may be withdrawn from reserves on an as-needed basis during the year.
• US$12,668.54 received so far (as of February 28, 2018) and US$315,631.46 projected to be received until the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on April 21 from 8 to 10PM UTC (what time is that in my timezone?).

[Edit:] The chat has now ended. Thanks to those who came by and asked questions!

To download the OTW’s budget for 2018 in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Nikki Bird, who volunteers as a staffer in our Finance Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

I am part of the Finance Committee, which handles the money things for OTW. We are responsible for the bookkeeping of the organization, as well as tax preparation, budgeting, and any other fun and exciting financial related matters that come up. Basically, we make sure a lot of the administrative stuff is taken care of for the OTW to keep running.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

My weeks range from calm and quiet, with ample sleeping, eating, reading, and writing (although those have been rare and I’m probably just dreaming that this is even possible) to insane and crazy (the normal standard of my life now). I work full time (is there something more than full time?), am enrolled in online graduate-level accounting classes, and my significant annoyance needs occasional attention like watching TV together or epically competitive Monopoly games (I never knew I was so competitive). So I fit in my volunteer work as much as I can in the evenings and on the weekends.

And no week is the same for the Finance Committee, it really depends on what is going on. We have meetings once a week on the weekends and update each other on what’s happening, although we frequently chat in between meetings, discussing things that are going on as they happen. Some weeks are fairly quiet in terms of what needs to get done, others are jam packed with all kinds of things that it’s hard to know what to work on first. Lately, the main focuses have been the budget for 2018 and 2017 year end, as well as learning the bookkeeping system.

What experiences have you had that you found helpful for your volunteer work?

I am a licensed Certified Public Accountant in the state I live in and work full time in the accounting department of a non-profit with prior experience as an auditor. So I have experience and education in non-profit accounting that translates really well into my role in the Finance Committee. And conversely, since joining the Finance Committee, I have learned and experienced things with OTW that I then take back to my work since the organizations have different focuses and operations. With OTW operating all online, it’s shown me some different tools and methods for operating more efficiently and in a paperless way that I then am trying to incorporate at my work.

What's the most rewarding thing to you about volunteering for the OTW?

I find it incredibly rewarding to be able to help OTW with the accounting. Non-profit accounting has some different rules and quirks than a for-profit company would have and I like being able to share my knowledge in a helpful way. As I progress in my career, I hope to become an expert in non-profit accounting, so my volunteering with OTW is helping me tremendously by gaining experience that I don’t have access to at my work, again just because it’s two very different organizations.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I stumbled into the fandom world at the end of 2016 thanks to looking online to decide if I wanted to read the next series in a fandom and discovered my OTP was canon (and at the time had no clue what that meant and didn’t even realize I had an OTP). That led me to fan fics and art on Tumblr, which lead to my discovery of Ao3, which led to me eventually trying to write my own stuff. I’m sad I didn’t discover this treasurer trove of online community sooner, although my school and work productivity is thankful (productivity definitely took a sharp nosedive for a few months as I consumed fics like oxygen and they were necessary for my very survival).

But I really enjoy being a part of the various fandoms I like, even if I’m not a super active participant. I like seeing other people’s headcanons, reading fics, seeing art. I just love consuming it all and feeling connected to other people based on our interests. Nothing is better than screaming nonsense with others about how great something is and how much you love it and all the feels that come with it.

I would love to actively write more often, but life has been too busy for that to be a regular focus. As I have little bits of time I’m slowly working away, maybe someday I’ll be able to post it.

Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

Earlier this year, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) published its budget for 2017. As December draws closer, we'd like to give you an update on our financial outlook for the rest of the year, and how our plans have progressed or changed since a few months ago.

Our Finance team is currently preparing for the OTW's first audit of financial statements, in what we expect will become a regular annual process going forward. Given the size of our organization and our donors' generosity, it's important for us to make sure that our bookkeeping and internal controls are as efficient and thorough as they can be. We're very grateful to have the stability and revenue required for this undertaking. Thanks to our donors for making this possible!

2017 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

• US$89,207.44 spent so far out of US$224,045.79 total this year, as of August 31, 2017.
• As usual, the majority of the OTW's expenses—a projected 72% of this year's total—goes towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance fees—plus contractor work, website performance monitoring tools, various systems-related licences and training (access all program expenses).
• We continue to work with coding contractors on structural improvements for the AO3, and there's been a lot of progress throughout this year, such as our much-needed Rails upgrade! Check out the Archive's latest release notes for information on our most recent deploys.

Fanlore

• US$1,389.03 spent so far out of US$5,688.85 total this year, as of August 31, 2017.
• Fanlore expenses are mostly its allocation of server purchase, maintenance and colocation costs, in addition to related licenses and Fanlore web domains (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC)

• US$819.81 spent so far out of US$3,399.74 total this year, as of August 31, 2017.
• TWC's expenses are its allotment of server costs, as well as the journal’s publishing and storage fees (access all program expenses).

Open Doors

• US$402.25 spent so far out of US$1,685.78 total this year, as of August 31, 2017.
• This year’s expenses for Open Doors are hosting, backup and domain costs for archives imported by Open Doors (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

• US$0 spent so far out of US$1,500.00 total this year.
• Legal’s expenses consist of filing fees (access all program expenses).

Con outreach

• US$713.50 spent so far out of US$2,013.50 total this year, as of August 31, 2017.
• Our convention outreach expenses consist of preparing and shipping promotional material related to the OTW and its projects for volunteers to share with other fans at conventions. This year we've done a meet-up during San Diego Comic-Con and a technical talk about the AO3's systems infrastructure at Nine Worlds (access all con outreach expenses).

Fundraising

• US$12,669.94 spent so far out of US$27,089.94 total this year, as of August 31, 2017.
• Our fundraising expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation; thank-you gifts purchase and shipping; and the tools used to host the OTW’s membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors (access all fundraising expenses).

Administration

• US$10,893.98 spent so far out of US$44,874.98 total this year, as of August 31, 2017.
• The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, auditing services, as well as project management, communication and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2017 Revenue

• The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
• We receive most of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together should account for about 81% of our income in 2017. We also receive donations via employer matching programs and Amazon Smile.
• The OTW Finance team is investigating options for a sustainable plan to invest the OTW's current reserves; our forecasted income should be enough to cover this year's expenses without requiring emergency withdrawals from our reserves.
• US$191,014.11 so far (as of August 31, 2017) and US$321,531.62 projected until the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We will also be hosting an open chat to answer any questions you may have. This chat will take place in our public chatroom on October 15 from 7PM to 9PM (what time is that in my timezone?). This post will be updated with a chatroom link a few hours before the appointed time. Come chat with us, and bring your questions!

To download the OTW’s updated budget for 2017 in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.

The OTW is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects, including AO3, Fanlore, Open Doors, TWC, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on the OTW website.