Fiscal sponsors care to share your operating tips, budget, etc?
February 19, 2010 5:54 AM Subscribe
Fiscal sponsors care to share your operating tips, budget, etc?
My organization has over the passt year slowly developed a fiscal sposnorship program for some local projects and associations. It wass not something we started out to do, but once we got our first few projects under our belt, and the word got out, we have seen a constant interest and inquiry from folks looking for this service from a non-profit such as ours.
We are now in the position to submit a grant to a local foundation for some start-up funding to really get our fiscal sponsorship program off the ground as a formal endeavor. We all see the need as there is no other local/regional provider of this service (of course we would be competing with large national fiscal sponsor service providers, but we think there will be enough interest for a local/regional provider to sustain the program eventually).
My question is: besides starting from scratch to develop this type of programming, are there any best practices, how-to guides, back-end shareable platforms for recordkeeping, development ideas, cash flow statements detailing revenue versus costs, etc. that anyone would be interested in sharing with us? Thank you.
My organization has over the passt year slowly developed a fiscal sposnorship program for some local projects and associations. It wass not something we started out to do, but once we got our first few projects under our belt, and the word got out, we have seen a constant interest and inquiry from folks looking for this service from a non-profit such as ours.
We are now in the position to submit a grant to a local foundation for some start-up funding to really get our fiscal sponsorship program off the ground as a formal endeavor. We all see the need as there is no other local/regional provider of this service (of course we would be competing with large national fiscal sponsor service providers, but we think there will be enough interest for a local/regional provider to sustain the program eventually).
My question is: besides starting from scratch to develop this type of programming, are there any best practices, how-to guides, back-end shareable platforms for recordkeeping, development ideas, cash flow statements detailing revenue versus costs, etc. that anyone would be interested in sharing with us? Thank you.
Interesting question. I'm not familiar with any how-to guides.
An organization that provides this service in a big way is The Tides Foundation. They take a cut (I believe 10%) of all donations made to the projects they sponsor to fund their operations.
The Commonwealth Institute of Cambridge, MA provides fiscal sponsorship for a small number of organizations.
The other cases of fiscal sponsorship that I'm familiar with exist because of a very close alignment between the missions of the sponsor and the project. The project organizer wants to start what would essentially be its own non-profit, but it is small enough that it doesn't make sense for them to go through the overhead of forming their own 501-c3. The phase of being sponsored is often (though not always) a stepping stone to become a full-fledged independent non-profit.
It sounds like you're doing something different, i.e. rather than housing ongoing smaller organizations, you're sponsoring single-hit projects that people want to be able to fund through tax-deductible contributions. Is that a fair description? For that you might want to set things up more as a kind of directed-giving program rather than through a fiscal sponsorship model.
In any case, the correct answer here is to talk to an attorney who is familiar with non-profit law and tax law. There could be serious implications for your organizations non-profit status, so you want to make sure to get this right.
Good luck, it sounds like a very worthy endeavor.
posted by alms at 6:42 AM on February 19, 2010
An organization that provides this service in a big way is The Tides Foundation. They take a cut (I believe 10%) of all donations made to the projects they sponsor to fund their operations.
The Commonwealth Institute of Cambridge, MA provides fiscal sponsorship for a small number of organizations.
The other cases of fiscal sponsorship that I'm familiar with exist because of a very close alignment between the missions of the sponsor and the project. The project organizer wants to start what would essentially be its own non-profit, but it is small enough that it doesn't make sense for them to go through the overhead of forming their own 501-c3. The phase of being sponsored is often (though not always) a stepping stone to become a full-fledged independent non-profit.
It sounds like you're doing something different, i.e. rather than housing ongoing smaller organizations, you're sponsoring single-hit projects that people want to be able to fund through tax-deductible contributions. Is that a fair description? For that you might want to set things up more as a kind of directed-giving program rather than through a fiscal sponsorship model.
In any case, the correct answer here is to talk to an attorney who is familiar with non-profit law and tax law. There could be serious implications for your organizations non-profit status, so you want to make sure to get this right.
Good luck, it sounds like a very worthy endeavor.
posted by alms at 6:42 AM on February 19, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks for your thoughful response Alms, however, we are indeed looking to have a program similar to Tides on a more local/regional basis to start. We've got legal counsel, and also have read the right books on the legalities and framework for this type of program.
What I'm really looking for are "best practices", process tips, program administration details, etc.
Cheers!
posted by franklen at 3:14 PM on March 21, 2010
What I'm really looking for are "best practices", process tips, program administration details, etc.
Cheers!
posted by franklen at 3:14 PM on March 21, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by franklen at 5:56 AM on February 19, 2010