Private Organizations

Private organizations are dashboard-only accounts for groups that need operational privacy while using Open Collective admin tools.

Private organizations are in alpha. Behavior and availability may change without notice. There is no self-serve setup flow on the platform today. If your group is interested in private organizations, please contact Open Collective.

What are private organizations?

Private organizations (and other private accounts) exist for groups that need to manage money and operations on Open Collective without a public profile or contribution flow. They are intended for dashboard-only use by authorized admins and accountants.

Private accounts are not discoverable through public search or profile pages in the same way as standard collectives and organizations.

Who is this for?

Private organizations are for host admins and organization admins who are onboarded through Open Collective. This is not a general signup path. Open Collective provisions private accounts manually after discussing requirements with your group.

What to expect once provisioned

After Open Collective sets up a private account for your group, you can expect:

Dashboard access

Authorized roles (admins, accountants, and host admins in your tree) can use standard dashboard tools for money management, expenses, and reporting.

No public fundraising surfaces

Private accounts do not offer the same public-facing features as standard organizations:

• No public contribution or checkout flow for visitors

• No public tiers, funding goals, or profile marketing

• No public updates or community conversations

Host tree rules

A fiscal host tree cannot mix public and private hosted accounts. If a host is private, its hosted children are private as well. Private accounts cannot bridge expenses or added funds across different fiscal host trees.

Restricted visibility

Only authorized users can view private account details. Others who follow a direct link may see an access-denied response rather than account information.

Note: Private organizations are different from users or vendors with disabled public profiles.

• Private organizations: Fully private accounts with no public-facing features at all. Dashboard-only access for authorized users.

• Disabled public profile (individual users): The profile page is hidden, but activity remains visible as a contributor to collectives and as a member of organizations.

• Vendors with contributor profile disabled: Standard vendor behavior—no public profile page, only visible in host admin views. When enabled, vendors can showcase their contributions on a public profile page.

Getting started

There is no button or settings page to enable private organizations yourself. To discuss whether private organizations fit your needs, contact Open Collective.