Fiscal sponsorship continues to emerge as an alternative model that allows individuals or groups to engage in charitable activities without establishing a separate nonprofit entity.
From the vast amount of data we were able to gather, a story emerges about the current state of fiscal sponsorship in the United States. The purpose of this Field Scan is to share that story with all interested parties including the fiscal sponsors themselves and the general philanthropic community.
We hope this publication will encourage more local organizations to add fiscal sponsorship to their menu of services and more area donors to broaden their approach to providing financial support for the arts.
As fiscal sponsorship continues to become a more widely used tool for charitable impact, it is important that 501(c)(3) organizations acting as a fiscal sponsor are doing it right. Board members of sponsoring organizations must fully understand the role the organization is playing, its legal responsibilities and possible risks, and how to be a good steward and partner to its sponsored projects.
The goal of this white paper is threefold: 1) to complement TCI’s original publication and contribute to the current body of literature on fiscal sponsorship,1 (2) to communicate the value that a good fiscal sponsor can provide to social impact projects, and 3) to highlight the evolution of fiscal sponsorship best practices over the past decade.
This publication discusses common questions concerning fiscal sponsorship. Fiscal sponsorship is an alternative to forming a new nonprofit corporation when a proposed charitable program is relatively small in scope or when a business plan is in its beginning stages.
