Fiscal Sponsorship

Fiscal Sponsorship

Program Info

Date start	Aug 2017
Type of Program	Community · Education · Professional Development
Parent program	Community

Current Roles

Staff

Zac Traeger · Executive Director

Program Purpose

The Museum of Human Achievement acts as Fiscal Sponsor for many artists and informal organizations to apply for and manage grant funding as well as donations. Fiscal sponsorship is a legal structure and tax mechanism to umbrella individuals and informal groups, events, or programs under the non-profit status of a 501c3 organization. This can help with eligibility for certain grants as well as reduce tax liability when receiving grant funds.

Fiscal sponsorship at MoHA provides some of the benefits of non-profit status and professional services to help build the capacity of community projects and new charitable organizations. Our service offers support for financial distribution and grant compliance.

MoHA operates a NO FEE fiscal sponsorship program. In most cases, sponsored projects pay an administrative fee, usually a percentage of all donations processed, to their fiscal sponsor organization. At MoHA, we see fiscal sponsorship as a pathway to economic equity. For this reason, we do not charge a fee on funds raised by our fiscally sponsored projects. MoHA’s fiscally sponsored projects and organizations must be aligned with our mission and committed to upholding our community standards.

Read about our fiscally sponsored projects and organizations on our Open Collective page, the platform we use to manage finances with our fiscally sponsored projects and organizations.

What to consider if you are looking to be fiscally sponsored

If you are looking to be fiscally sponsored, here are some things you may want to ask yourself:

• What's your mission?
  • Why is this mission important in the current moment?
  • What is the history of this mission or the organization?
• Who helps you in that mission? (leadership)
• Who are you serving? (community)
  • What’s your relationship to this community?
  • How do you listen?
• How are you serving community? (programming and history)
  • What strategies or practical approaches are you taking?
  • Where have you found success?
• How does the community support you?
  • Do people volunteer, donate, provide knowledge etc…
• What does success look like for you? What does success look like for your org? What's success look like for your community? (impact)
• How do you measure success/failure/impact? (evaluation)
• How do you adapt based on those measurements?
• Do you have a budget?
  • Have you ever paid yourself or others to fulfill the mission?
• Is it your first time applying for grant funds? Do you think you might feel more comfortable if you had guidance from people who work at nonprofits and have experience making project plans, budgets, reports, etc?