Proposal: Kill matching funds

[Betree]

Acknowledging

• That maintaining code for a feature always takes time (eg. tests need to be updated, bugs...)
• That unmaintained features can contain security issues, or be a vector for privilege escalation
• That the bigger/more complex the code base, the harder it is for newcomers to get on board

And regarding the fact that...

• Matching funds has been dead since we deployed the new contribution flow (~6 months now)
• No one complained about it or asked for this particular feature (to my knowledge)
• Gift cards somehow fills the same needs of companies giving next to individuals
• It may not be too hard to re-implement with fresh code if needed in the future
• The feature hasn't been a success overall (see data below)

Data: all matching funds currently on Open Collective (active + inactive)

```sql SELECT c.slug AS from_collective, pm.name, pm."expiryDate", FORMAT('$%s', COALESCE(SUM(t.amount), 0) / 100) AS total_matched FROM "PaymentMethods" pm INNER JOIN "Collectives" c ON c.id = pm."CollectiveId" LEFT JOIN "Transactions" t ON t."PaymentMethodId" = pm.id WHERE matching IS NOT NULL GROUP BY c.id, pm.id ```

from_collective	name	expiryDate	total_matched
xdamman	Matching Fund #BrusselsTogether	2018-01-02 01:00:00	$11
xdamman	Matching Fund Open Collective	2018-01-01 01:00:00	$132
opencollectiveinc	Matching Fund for Open Collective Paris	[NULL]	$0
opencollectiveinc	Matching Fund for Open Collective UK	[NULL]	$0
opencollectiveinc	Matching Fund for Open Collective Europe	[NULL]	$0
notationcapital	7212	2018-03-10 01:00:00	$102

I propose that

We kill the matching fund feature entirely:

• [ ] Remove all references left in the frontend (homepage/marketing included)
• [ ] We remove all the code for it from the API
• [ ] Re-enable https://github.com/opencollective/opencollective-api/blob/7509c2ea9cd80b4d4f769e8af1758337f78dd1cd/cron/daily/check_ledger_health.js#L189?

---

Resolve https://github.com/opencollective/opencollective/issues/1323

[xdamman]

Ok for me. We can always revive that flame once we have a concrete demand from a large donor.

[piamancini]

+1

[Betree]

Thanks for the quick feedback, this is now in my TODO.