How To Set Up An Open Collective
Fiscal Host: Because setting up a legal entity, especially a non-profit, is a lot of work, overhead, and maintenance, so if you can instead work with an org that has already done that work, you can get the benefits that come with being a legal entity (like having a bank account, donations being tax deductible if your fiscal host is a non-profit, and the ability to pay out expenses via tools like PayPal, Venmo, and CashApp) without having to duplicate that effort.
Open Collective: Because you get access to a robust transparent accounting tool that automates a lot of the work of working and coordinating with a fiscal host, straightforwards expensing processes, the ability to set up sub-projects which are very helpful for fundraising and accounting for specific initiatives within an organization, and the ability to contact and communicate with donors who do not explicitly opt to be anonymous. Charlotte Food Not Bombs and Charlotte Mask Bloc are great examples of live and active Open Collective pages you can check out for examples!
What is a fiscal host?Open Collective has the best resource on explaining what a fiscal host is that I have found so far here!
Find a Fiscal Host
Find an aligned organization that is already a legal entity (ideally one that is a 501c3/non-profit so that you do not have to pay taxes on donations) that would be open to being your collective's fiscal host (you can send them this page or any of the resources Open Collective has available if they have questions about what that means or entails) and that your collective sufficiently trusts to be their fiscal host (your collective's funds will be held in the fiscal host's bank account, so there is a degree of trust and having a good working relationship that makes for the best fiscal host setups).
Connect accounts on Open Collective
Once your collective and the fiscal host make accounts on Open Collective, the fiscal host just has to make themselves available for fiscal hosting requests, your collective request to them, and they approve it, and you're set up!
That's it!
That's really all there is to setting up on Open Collective with a fiscal host, the biggest/highest effort really is just finding a fiscal host you trust and who is open to being your fiscal host!
From here you just have to figure out who the admins on your collective's Open Collective account are going to be, what the process will be for expensing and paying out things, and the fiscal host will have to figure out how they're going to internally pay out expenses as a fiscal host and what platforms (Venmo, PayPal, CashApp, etc.) they are able to do so on, but the above is all that is needed to set up on Open Collective with a fiscal host!