# General overview For the first two years, our organization was almost solely funded through volunteer work as well as non-monetary contributions and sponsorships from a handful of collaborative economy startups. Therefore OuiShare's financial reporting in this document is being started with the year 2013. ## Funding sources As we have grown, we have drawn from a variety of sources of funding that enable us to cover the costs of our operational and strategic activities: * Sponsorships and ticket sales (mostly for events) * Public grants and subsidies * [Global Partners, ](http://ouishare.net/en/global-partners)who are forward-looking organizations that support OuiShare on an annual basis * Donations from individuals As our flagship project, our [OuiShare Fest ](http://ouishare.net/en/projects/ouishare-fest\\)as well as large projects like POC21 and the sponsorships they have been financed with, represent the most significant part of our budget today. They also subsidize many of our operational activities such as accounting and communications. Therefore it is our aim to diminish our dependency on these projects over time by increasing our financing from member donations and grants. Since **projects are managed in a financially autonomous way,** but can receive ignition funding from the global budget to get started. If profitable, projects can also help cover the overall organizational costs, as for instance OuiShare Fest. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://finances.ouishare.net/general-overview.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.