Transparency

    Name, registered office, address and year of incorporation

    Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland e. V.
    Singerstr. 109 | D-10179 Berlin

    Year of incorporation: 2011
    Register of associations no.: VR 30468 B

    Complete statutes as well as information on the organisational goals (DE)

    The statutes of the Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland e. V. can be found here.

    Information on tax relief

    Our work is exempt from corporation tax pursuant to § 5 para. 1 no. 9 of the Corporation Tax Act and from trade tax pursuant to § 3 no. 6 of the Trade Tax Act due to the promotion of science and research, the promotion of popular and vocational education as well as student assistance, the strengthening of the democratic state as well as the strengthening of civic commitment pursuant to the last exemption notice received by us from the Tax Office for Corporations I, Berlin dated 13.05.2025.

    A current extract from the register of associations can be found here.

    Name and function of essential decision makers

    Kristina Klein is chairwoman of the board, Gabriele C. Klug is treasurer. Further board members are Elina Eickstädt, Lea Gimpel, Stefan Heumann, Fiona Krakenbürger and Felix Reda. Henriette Litta is managing director of the association.

    Annual reports [DE]

    Transparancy has to be lived and not just demanded, and thus, since 2017, we provide our annual financial and activity report following the guidelines of the Social Reporting Standard.

    Personnel structure

    In addition to the managing director, OKF DE employs 40 team members (2023). The project leads manage their projects independently and have project teams with project managers and project assistants. The team of the managing director includes all personnel with responsibilities for the organization itself. OKF DE pays salaries to its employees based on the collective agreement of the federal states in Germany (TVL). Students receive remuneration in accordance with the Berlin collective agreement for students. The proportion of female team members at OKF DE’s’ is about 66 percent.

    Information on source & use of funds

    Under the heading “Funding” we present in detail the financial development of the organization and the income and expenditure of the current financial year. Since 2018, we have been undergoing a voluntary external audit. ](/files/documents/WP-Berichte/OKF-DE-WPBericht-2022.pdf)

    Neither private nor legal persons hold shares in our association. This would not be possible. There is no membership in any other organisation, we are not legally affiliated with any organisation, and hold no shares in any other organisation.

    Core funding from Luminate and a donation of the Alfred Landecker Foundation for FragDenStaat each correspond to approx. 13% of the total income in 2023. Project funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research to finance the Prototype Fund as well as the project MoFab accounts for approximately 11% of the total annual budget in 2023. Project funding from the Saxonian State Ministry for Culture and Education for Jugend hackt activities in Saxony accounts for approx. 10% of the total income in 2023. All other income is well below 10% of total income.

    Internal ethics officer

    Since 2017, we have had the office of ethics officer in the team. The ethics officer is the first point of contact for internal and external ethical questions. In addition, the ethics officer is the first point of contact for team members who have concerns and uncertainties of any kind. The ethics officer ensures that requests are forwarded to the right places (e.g. board or director) and supervises the process. The current ethics officer is Giulia Norberti. External inquiries can be sent to ethics@okfn.de. [OpenPGP]

    Whistleblowing Policy

    OKF has joined a civil society alliance to introduce a Whistleblowing Policy. With the Whistleblowing Policy, we are committed to protecting people who report significant misconduct in our organization. We have established a joint internal reporting office with the participating organizations to which whistleblowers can turn. The reporting office can be reached via: https://www.vertrauensanwalt.org/. You can find further information in our OKF Code of Procedure (only in German).

    Transparency obligations

    We are signatories to the Initiative Transparent Civil Society and thus commit ourselves to the greatest possible openness. We are registered in the Lobbyregister of the German Parliament under registration number R000405. We are also registered in the EU Transparency Register.

    Licenses

    We are committed to the publication, use and reuse of open knowledge. We take intellectual property rights very seriously. Therefore, it is only logical to make all the content we create as openly accessible as possible.