Fiscal Sponsors and Electronic Grant Agreements
We are transitioning to electronic grant agreements this spring and I would like to know how organizations handle fiscal sponsors. With a letter, it was easy to email that to another organization, but now the fiscal sponsor will need access to Foundant to be able to sign the agreement. Has anyone worked through this?
Thank you!
Best Answer
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This is a tricky one @PeggyKennedy.
If the sponsored org is the applicant, you can ask them pass on the agreement (via email or another method), but that can create delays. The alternative is to use the collaborator feature, but that gives the fiscal sponsor access to all stages of the grant, not just the grant agreement (you can turn the access back off again after they sign).
Perhaps it's cleaner to have the sponsor act as applicant, but that requires a lot of coordination as well.
I do think it's best to pick a method and stick to it. We have a mashup. Some of our fiscally sponsored orgs are given a user name and apply under their sponsor's site (usually when the Community Foundation is the sponsor). I assume they are not given permission to view history, as that would allow them to look at others' grants. Others (most) have created their own GLM sites and complete the fiscal sponsor portion of the application.
I know of at least one funder that asks fiscally sponsored orgs to register with an EIN with all zeroes, as an indicator that fiscal sponsor info will be included. Of course if that org ends up getting their own 501c3, that creates a whole other set of questions about whether to create a new site or add their new EIN...
Like I said, it's tricky.
I'm not sure if you're going to Foundant's Summit, but I believe they are having a session on fiscal sponsorships.
Hopefully you'll get some other responses. Would love to see a neat and tidy way to handle.
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Answers
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This is a tricky one @PeggyKennedy.
If the sponsored org is the applicant, you can ask them pass on the agreement (via email or another method), but that can create delays. The alternative is to use the collaborator feature, but that gives the fiscal sponsor access to all stages of the grant, not just the grant agreement (you can turn the access back off again after they sign).
Perhaps it's cleaner to have the sponsor act as applicant, but that requires a lot of coordination as well.
I do think it's best to pick a method and stick to it. We have a mashup. Some of our fiscally sponsored orgs are given a user name and apply under their sponsor's site (usually when the Community Foundation is the sponsor). I assume they are not given permission to view history, as that would allow them to look at others' grants. Others (most) have created their own GLM sites and complete the fiscal sponsor portion of the application.
I know of at least one funder that asks fiscally sponsored orgs to register with an EIN with all zeroes, as an indicator that fiscal sponsor info will be included. Of course if that org ends up getting their own 501c3, that creates a whole other set of questions about whether to create a new site or add their new EIN...
Like I said, it's tricky.
I'm not sure if you're going to Foundant's Summit, but I believe they are having a session on fiscal sponsorships.
Hopefully you'll get some other responses. Would love to see a neat and tidy way to handle.
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Lori,
Thank you so much for this insight. I totally agree it is a tricky situation. I was moving towards the collaborator approach, but it seemed a bit confusing for the fiscal sponsors. Since I only had two grantees with fiscal sponsors this past Board Meeting, I opted for the previous method of providing them with a letter that they could pass along, just for those two grantees. This is not a permanent solution, but I thought it would buy me some time to delve into this a bit more.
I am unfortunately not going to Summit, but I will definitely look for anything that comes out of that session on fiscal sponsorships that could help me find a workable solution!
Thanks again!
Peggy
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