bleeding ink and words

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/34811

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$6,512.63total 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.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/34811