What is Fiscal Sponsorship?

What do we mean by the term 'fiscal sponsorship?'

Well, in a nutshell, a fiscal sponsor acts as the legal non profit home for people that want to make a difference.

Some change agents are looking for short term fiscal sponsorship.  They want help setting up their own non profits while temporarily enjoying the benefits--including the ability to immediately receive tax deductible donations--that fiscal sponsors can offer. Visions Made Viable serves as a 'non profit incubator' for people who eventually want to create their own non profit organizations.

Or it may be a more permanent arrangement in the case of projects that remain under the non profit 'umbrella' of the fiscal sponsor over the longer term. VMV also offers ongoing fiscal sponsorship to people that want to do their mission without the hassle of creating and managing their own non profit.

Existing projects and non profits established outside the U.S may also make use of a U.S. based fiscal sponsor as the legal home for their organization in the United States. That way, American donors who want to contribute to those international efforts can do so while receiving a tax deduction, and U.S. foundations restricted to giving to U.S. non profits can disperse monies to those overseas efforts by routing the monies through a U.S. based fiscal sponsor. Visions Made Viable offers those services to overseas projects and non profits pursuing goals in harmony with our mission (see our 'mission' page).

In each of these situations, the fiscal sponsor contributes its tax exempt status to the project. Folks developing the project or non profit can receive tax deductible donations immediately.

Visions Made Viable is among a relatively small group of cutting edge organizations fully dedicated to fiscal sponsorship. VMV is focused on fiscal sponsorship as a new and better way to advance social change. It's what we do.

Fiscal sponsorship offers so many advantages as a model for social change. We invite you to read through our website to get a more complete picture.

But it's worth mentioning one advantage here because it's so timely. In these times of economic struggle around the world, consolidating effort and saving money has never been more important. We think creating a single non-profit entity and administrative structure that can shelter and serve many new social change efforts is simply good stewardship and will save precious time and money often lost through duplicated effort. 

For example, a fiscal sponsor can purchase basic liability insurance that covers many projects. Let's say that insurance costs $5000 per year. And let's say the fiscal sponsor is covering ten projects. If each project had to purchase that basic liability insurance seperately, the total cost of insurance for those ten projects would come to $50,000. Do the math. Consolidating the coverage of those projects under a single fiscal sponsor saves $45,000. That's a big chunk of money that can be invested in important new efforts for social change rather than in bonuses for insurance executives.

Doing more with less is now a moral imperative. We believe that Visions Made Viable offers a new and more sustainable model for social change that promotes good stewardship of increasingly precious resources.