Welcome | Fedecan
fedecan.ca
Discover a new way to connect online. As a Canadian not-for-profit, we can help you join a growing network of federated social media that prioritizes community over profit.

We recently crossed the first anniversary for many of us on Lemmy and the Fediverse, and we are thrilled to announce an important milestone: we have started a new registered not-for-profit organization! The organization is registered as ‘Federated Open Communications Canada’, and we will go by ‘Fedecan’ in our day-to-day operations.

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

Resuming Donations

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

Our current costs

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

Our Next Steps:

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

What we want to know:

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

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

Thank you for everything so far, and we look forward to seeing you around! 🥳

The Fedecan Team

  • brianpeiris@lemmy.caEnglish
    6·
    4 months ago

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

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

    • I really like how OpenCollective.com makes it easy to see the incoming and outgoing transactions for a fund. You’ve setup up a bunch of payment options already, so I don’t want to add to that burden, but it would be cool to see a similar kind of reporting for Fedecan – it doesn’t have to be super sophisticated, heck even a CSV transaction log would do. It would be useful for transparency, but also so that the community can ensure Fedecan’s expenses are comfortably paid for.
    • My dream is that the Fediverse provides viable alternatives to big tech’s social platforms, and the first thing that comes to mind is how Facebook and its various services are the default for so many people. Facebook’ Social Graph, Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, Facebook Marketplace and Instagram come to mind. If Fedecan can work towards providing a stable alternative to even one of those, it would be an effort worth supporting.
    • Currently the only other Fediverse services I use are Mastodon through social.coop, and BookWyrm through Bookrastinaing. I’d love to see Fedecan build or support essential services like that.
    • This is leaving the Fediverse scope, but I recently learned about an initiative from India where they’re tackling monopolies like Uber by building services that don’t take commission. NammaYatri.in is one example. They use the Beckn protocol and India’s ONDC stack. In the very long term, I wonder if Fedecan could support those kinds of initiatives, to setup alternatives with healthier incentives baked in.
    • Otter@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

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

      I have notes for next year’s version :)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      • brianpeiris@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

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

        Looking forward to Fedecan’s future!

    • Shadow@lemmy.caMEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

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