Fiscal Sponsorships: For the Present and the Future

This year and next are likely to be critical years for legal regulation of fiscal sponsorships.

Fiscal sponsorships have been a time-honored method to spawn new charitable activity when the people with the vision and the energy to do the work do not have recognition of federal charitable exempt status.  But they have operated primarily on the basis of a legal handbook, with no formal legislative regulation and relatively few legal precedents to guide them.

Like donor advised funds which had operated for decades without legal definition and no recognition in the Tax Code until Congress imposed significant regulation in 2006, fiscal sponsorships are facing new scrutiny that could culminate in a host of new regulations, ranging from new reporting requirements on the sponsor’s Form 990 tax information return, to new legal definitions in the Tax Code, limitations on activity, and penalties for the participants who don’t comply with the new rules.

This webinar will describe the current world of fiscal sponsorships.  It will describe and define the basic types of fiscal sponsorship and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.  It will discuss the critical issues for the sponsors, the sponsored, and the donors who support the process.

We will talk about legal control of the project, fees, duties of the sponsor, intellectual property rights, termination and exit issues, and what happens with unspent money. We will talk about how sponsored projects and donors can assure that the sponsor doesn’t spend the project money for other things, or so mismanage its own finances that it goes out of business and leaves multiple projects without the money they expected to have.

After discussing the way things are now, we will discuss the way things might become in the next year or two.

Evaluators of this webinar in previous years have regularly called it interesting and valuable.  Most of them have said that they learned things that they could use immediately in their work.

If you are a fiscal sponsor, someone considering a fiscal sponsorship, or a donor, you won’t want to miss this program for what you need to know now and might need to know in the future.

Nonprofit Issues^® editor Don Kramer will be joined by Jeffrey Fromknecht, a former social worker who is currently an attorney with Dentons. He is also the founder and current CEO of Side Project Inc., which serves as a fiscal sponsor for projects in Pennsylvania, Florida and Oregon.  Jeff has more than 20 years of experience working with nonprofit organizations in a variety of direct service and administrative roles in addition to his role as a lawyer.

The program will be presented in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations.

Here is what some of the participants in our prior webinars have said in their evaluations:

• Great webinar
• Excellent and interesting presentation

100% of the survey respondents said they learned something they would use in their programs.

Not a current Nonprofit Issues subscriber? Purchase this webinar and receive a three-month introductory subscription for FREE.

While we typically encourage people to watch/listen to the presentation in a group setting, we understand that might not be possible. We are offering special discount pricing for multiple participants. Registrants, who pay one full-price registration, can add up to 5 people for the flat rate of $45 for the group. To add additional attendees, add this product to your cart.

Program materials will be forwarded prior to the webinar. This program is offered in partnership with PANO.

Not able to join us for the live event? The program will be recorded. You can reserve your copy and listen at your convenience.