Free Software for Collections, Built by the Industry, Answering to No One

FORT WORTH, Texas, August 17, 2026. A new nonprofit organization built to serve the accounts receivable and debt collection industry announced its formation today. The Open Accounts Receivable Collective Foundation, operating as The OpenAR Collective, will provide the industry with free, openly licensed software, open educational and compliance resources, and a peer community that belongs to its practitioners rather than to any company inside it.

The Foundation is a Delaware non-stock nonprofit corporation. It charges no fees, sells nothing, requires no membership to use its resources, and does not engage in lobbying or political advocacy.

Practitioners already have newsletters, conferences, and trade association programming, all of which provide genuine value. What has not existed is a neutral, nonprofit space with no commercial constituency and no sponsor-driven incentive, where a two-person agency and a national one can use the same tools, read the same guidance, and answer each other’s questions.

“I got excited about the idea of building an enterprise-grade open-source collection system,” said Rob Grafrath, Founder and Board Chair, “but I knew I couldn’t do it alone. Once I started talking to my peers, everyone wanted in, and the idea shifted from the software to the community needed to build it and keep it free. I like to call it a reverse Field of Dreams vision. If they come, we will build it.”

What the Foundation will build

Open-source software, released under the Apache License, Version 2.0. The flagship program will be a production-grade accounts receivable and collections platform that any organization can download, run, modify, and redistribute without a vendor relationship, license fee, or permission from anyone. Source code will be published publicly, and outside contributions will be accepted under a developer certificate of origin.

Open knowledge, including compliance and regulatory resources, educational content, and a webinar series, published freely rather than gated behind membership or sponsorship.

Neutral community, in the form of a peer space open to every practitioner in the industry, regardless of employer size or trade association affiliation.

Beyond the flagship platform, the direction of future programs will be set by the practitioners who participate.

Governance built to resist capture

A nonprofit serving a concentrated industry faces a structural risk: that a single funder, vendor, or faction accumulates enough influence to steer the organization toward private interests. The Foundation’s answer was put in place before the organization opened its doors. No single company can control the Board, no funder can buy a seat on it, and the Board has adopted eleven written governance policies covering conflicts of interest, anti-capture, antitrust compliance, and whistleblower protection, among others.

“The software has to be able to outlive me and outgrow anything I personally contribute to it,” Grafrath said. “I know my fellow receivables experts can be skeptics, so starting from a neutral, trustworthy position is essential. They need more than just a promise that the software will remain free. Ironclad legal protections have to be in place from day one.”

The founding Board

The Foundation’s five founding directors were seated in July and elected officers at the Board’s organizational meeting.

• Rob Grafrath, Chair. Founder of the Foundation, with 27 years in accounts receivable, beginning as a collector in 1999 and moving through senior technology and business development leadership at collection agencies, debt buyers, and a receivables software platform. He currently works as an independent technology consultant to the industry.
• Mark Cavin, Vice Chair. A career collections executive who has led recovery operations for consumer, commercial, and student loan portfolios, and who formerly served as Debt Collections Market Senior Policy Fellow at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He consults for the industry and serves as an expert witness.
• Porter Heath Morgan, Secretary. A third-generation collection attorney who grew up in the industry and has spent nearly two decades as counsel to collection agencies, collection law firms, debt buyers, healthcare providers, and technology companies. He speaks and writes frequently on artificial intelligence, compliance, and the future of the industry.
• Donna Weaver, Treasurer. An entrepreneur and product strategist whose career spans consumer finance, procurement, collections, and financial technology, including her tenure as President of RNN Group. She is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Debt Free Americans, a nonprofit leading the No One Is Alone Anymore™ consumer-finance initiative, expanding digital financial resolution and creating new ways for human-to-human bill-pay gifts and donations at scale.
• Lucas Brown, Director. Managing partner at Saige Analytics, specializing in data analysis and decision science, with responsibility for bringing technical depth to the questions that reach the Board.

The Board may expand to as many as nine seats, drawn from people actively contributing to the community and from a range of backgrounds. Seats are not available through sponsorship or donation.

How to participate

Membership is free, carries no dues or purchase requirements, and is open to any practitioner who supports the Foundation’s mission. Nothing the Foundation publishes requires membership to access.

Organizations can sign on as Mission Supporters, stating publicly that they support the Foundation’s mission. Supporters are listed on a public roster on identical terms, and the listing is not an endorsement by the Foundation of any company or of anything it sells.

Details on both participation programs, along with the Foundation’s governing documents and program initiatives, are available at openarcollective.org.

The Foundation is filing Form 1023 with the Internal Revenue Service to seek recognition of exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, following review by counsel. It is not currently soliciting contributions.

Grafrath will speak at the Brainstorm conference on September 9, 2026, where the OpenAR Collective will also staff a booth.

About The OpenAR Collective

The Open Accounts Receivable Collective Foundation, operating under the trade name The OpenAR Collective, is a Delaware nonprofit corporation working to make accounts receivable and debt collection more transparent, more compliant, and more accountable to the consumers it touches. It builds software under an open-source license so anyone can run, inspect, modify, and redistribute it at no cost. The Foundation also publishes open educational and compliance resources, develops shared standards, delivers training, and maintains a neutral, community-governed commons where practitioners learn from one another. More information is available at openarcollective.org.

Media contact
Rob Grafrath, Founder and Chair
The OpenAR Collective
[email protected]
openarcollective.org

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