fiscal sponsorship program manual - fractured atlas · fiscal sponsorship program manual...
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212.277.8020 248 West 35th St., Fl. 10 New York, NY 10001 www.fracturedatlas.org
Fiscal Sponsorship Program Manual
Congratulations! You have been approved by our Board of Directors to become a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas. The fiscal sponsorship program at Fractured Atlas operates almost exclusively through our website, which makes managing your fund very convenient for everyone. Before you begin, we ask that you spend a few minutes becoming familiar with how things work. This manual explains all of the policies and procedures we have put in place to help you raise money; please refer to it as you navigate our website.
If you have any questions that aren'ʹt answered in this manual, there are three ways to get an answer:
• Check out the comprehensive Knowledge Base section of our website.
• Send an email to [email protected].
• Give us a call at 888-‐‑692-‐‑7878. We are not a call center, but we'ʹll do our best to return
your call quickly.
Please note that this manual discusses legal concepts at certain points, such as types of business entities, IRS reporting requirements, basic rules about charitable contributions, and other topics. These overviews are provided for educational purposes only, are not comprehensive treatments of the topics addressed, and are not legal advice. If you need legal advice, please consult a lawyer.
Table of Contents
Managing your sponsored fund ............................................................................................................. pp. 3-‐‑5
Operating a business ................................................................................................................................ pp. 6-‐‑7 Types of businesses Earned and Contributed Revenue Banking & Taxes
Reporting Requirements .......................................................................................................................... pp. 8-‐‑9 Fractured Atlas Annual Report IRS tax returns
Raising money from individuals ........................................................................................................ pp. 10-‐‑21 Tax law 101 Soliciting individual support
Standard Text, Text approvals Check donations, Online Donations, Crowdfunding Tools, Matching Gifts, Noncash Donations, and Fundraising Events Donation receipts & thank you letters
Raising money from grants ................................................................................................................. pp. 22-‐‑25 Eligibility
Standard Text, Text approvals Online applications Corporate Sponsorship and Corporate Grant Applications Grant application Fees
Releasing Funds .................................................................................................................................... pp. 26-‐‑27
Promoting Your Project ............................................................................................................................... p. 28
Closing out your Sponsored Fund ............................................................................................................ p. 29
Prohibited Activities ............................................................................................................................. pp. 30-‐‑31
Additional Resources ........................................................................................................................... pp. 32-‐‑33
Fundraising ........................................................................................................................................... .pp. 34-‐‑35
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Managing Your Sponsored Fund
You must log in to the website in order to access information for managing your sponsored fund. After you’ve logged in, you’ll want to head to the “My Fiscal Sponsorship” page. You can find that by selecting the “Fiscal Sponsorship"ʺ section on the homepage.
The “My Fiscal Sponsorship” page is your personal command and control center. This is where you manage your fund, so bookmark it and plan to come back frequently. The following links, which correspond with the links on your “My Fiscal Sponsorship” page, are your main line of communication with Fractured Atlas regarding your project:
Online Profile Edit Online Profile -‐‑ Submit edits to the text that appears in your project’s online profile on our website, add a video or image, include a tagline, add or hide your giving levels, or provide a direct link to your own external website.
Donations Online -‐‑ The link to your unique donation page as well as the share/embed link. You can also set up giving levels for your online project profile. You can also access a unique donation page for your fundraising events here.
Checks -‐‑ The online form you’ll use to report contributions you’ve received by check. You can also access the Major Gift Letter here and instructions on how to process check donations.
Noncash Property – The online form you’ll use to report contributions of tangible items. You can also access the Noncash Donation Letter here and instructions on how to process noncash donations.
Sponsored Fund History -‐‑ You can look up a history of the donations that have been made in support of the charitable purposes of your sponsored project. This includes dates and amounts of donations, along with donor names and addresses.
Fund Releases Request Funds -‐‑ When you need money from your fund, use this form to submit the request.
Pending Fund Releases – You can edit and delete pending fund release requests by using this form.
Fund Release History -‐‑ A history of funds that have been released by Fractured Atlas to you for project expenditures.
Sign Up for Electronic Bank Transfers – This is the form you need to fill out in order to sign up to have funds transferred to your project’s bank account.
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Info /Reports Fund Balance and Available -‐‑ You can look up your project’s current fund balance and available fund balance. Full Fund History -‐‑ You can look up your project’s donation history, fund release history, view submitted annual reports, and download an excel spreadsheet that includes donor addresses.
File Annual Report -‐‑ The Annual Report form is required at the beginning of the year or before you terminate your membership.
Budgets Manage Budgets – Create budgets for your project.
Accessorize! Artful.ly – Connect to our custom-‐‑built program to manage your tickets, donations, and contacts.
Indiegogo – Learn more about and connect to crowdfunding through Indiegogo.
Fundraising Templates Sample Individual Appeal letter.
Sample Grant letter of inquiry.
Sample Grant proposal.
Sample project budget. Invoice Template.
FA Logos Logo for Web Use. Hi-‐‑Res Logo for Print Use.
Program Guidelines Summary of Policies and Procedures – Find the standard text that we require you include in your donor solicitation material and your unique online donation link here.
Full Program Manual – View the entire program manual.
Sponsorship Contract –View the fiscal sponsorship agreement.
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Tax Information for your Account –Learn how fiscally sponsored projects may report the income they receive from Fractured Atlas on their tax returns. Please note Fractured Atlas does not provide tax advice. You should confer with your own tax advisors on reporting income.
Expert Help Legal Assistance – Find legal resources in your area.
Accounting Assistance –Find accounting resources in your area.
Additional Resources – Links to additional resources.
Important Note: Membership Type and Authorized Users If you have a professional membership, you are the only person authorized to access your sponsored fund. If you want to give additional individuals access to your fund you must upgrade your membership level. To upgrade your membership, please log into the website and click on MY STUFF then the UPGRADE MEMBERSHIP link. Upgrading your membership will require an additional fee. If you have an organization membership, you can authorize additional users to manage your fund. To do so, just log in, click the MY STUFF link at the top of any page, and choose the Manage Users option to create the additional user accounts. The primary member may remove an authorized user at any time using the same form.
Membership Status Failure to pay the required professional or organizational membership dues results in an automatic downgrade to the community level membership, which will automatically end your project. Please make sure to attend to billing issues promptly. If you are worried about making a payment on your due date please contact our staff for options.
Reactivating Membership and Project If your membership has been automatically downgraded for non-‐‑payment please email [email protected] to request that your project be reactivated, after you have taken care of reinstating your membership. Project reactivation does not happen automatically. Your project activities must be the same as originally approved by the Board of Directors in order to be reactivated.
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Operating a Business
Regardless of whether you consider yourself a businessperson, raising money via fiscal sponsorship to produce your work means that you are operating a business and there are certain responsibilities that you must embrace in order to run a business in compliance with the law.
Types of Businesses
There are many different ways to form a business. However, most of our sponsored projects fall into one of three categories: Sole Proprietorships, Corporations, and Limited Liability Companies (LLCs). If you are an individual and you provided your social security number in the fiscal sponsorship application, then you are likely operating as a sole proprietorship. If you are confused about this, try searching Google for “business entity types” or “compare business entities” since there are many online resources available to advise you on the subject. If you ever decide to change your type of business (for example, you form an LLC or decide to incorporate), please contact our staff so that we may change our records to reflect the correct legal entity that is responsible for reporting the income we disburse.
Earned vs. Contributed Revenue
Our fiscal sponsorship program makes the distinction between Earned and Contributed revenue. “Earned revenue” refers to money that is paid as a fee for service or in exchange for goods. Examples of earned revenue include ticket sales, workshop fees, and merchandise sales. Donations and grants are considered “contributed revenue” because the money is donated or granted WITHOUT the exchange of any services or goods. Fractured Atlas will accept contributed revenue for the charitable purposes of our projects, but we generally don’t accept earned revenue (and you wouldn’t want us to since you would lose 7% of it unnecessarily). In certain circumstances, there may be exceptions made to this rule, but generally, we only accept earned revenue in the case of partially deductible donations (see Federal Tax Law 101) and you should plan to have earned revenue made payable directly to your company.
Bank Accounts
Fractured Atlas STRONGLY recommends that all sponsored projects open a separate bank account to receive, manage, and retain the revenue that your sponsored activities generate. Do not open a nonprofit bank account or use Fractured Atlas’s name to open the account. We WILL NOT provide you with our IRS Determination letter to open a bank account.
To open a bank account, we suggest approaching a local bank to inquire about what is required to open such an account. Keep in mind that smaller, independent banks (or better yet, non-‐‑profit credit unions) often charge the lowest fees and provide better customer service than the large corporate banks. In our experience, most banks will accept a Certificate of Assumed Name (aka DBA – “Doing Business As”) to open a business account as long as an individual is willing to personally guarantee the account. Some
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banks may require official documents stating that the business entity exists (Articles of Incorporation, Bylaws, etc) but if you hunt around, you can probably find a bank that will help you out – after all, they are in business to take people’s money. You are not required to have a business account; you can also open a separate personal checking account, so long as your own personal finances are not involved.
Taxes
Fractured Atlas STRONGLY recommends that you find a good accountant as soon as your sponsorship has been approved, if you haven’t done so already. Depending on the type of business, you may need an accountant who specializes in independent artists/freelancers or you may need an accounting firm that specializes in corporations. It is each project’s legal responsibility to properly and accurately complete any necessary tax returns, which is why finding a good accountant is encouraged. Our staff can sometimes provide general information regarding taxes but we are not accountants and we can’t provide tax advice.
We do offer basic tax information for your accountant. This information may help you learn how to report the income released from Fractured Atlas on the entity’s tax returns. It can be found on the “My Fiscal Sponsorship” section of the website under “Program Guidelines”.
Check out the “Expert Help” section of the “My Fiscal Sponsorship” page for accounting services as well as the Special Offers and Discount Section to find discounts on paid accounting services.
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Reporting Requirements
Fractured Atlas Annual Report
Some fiscal sponsors won’t release any funds until you’ve provided a receipt or an invoice documenting your expenses. Fractured Atlas’s method strives to make things easier for you on a day-‐‑to-‐‑day basis, but does slightly increase your reporting responsibilities at the end of the calendar year.
Once a year, you are responsible for providing us with an Annual Report documenting the funds raised for your project and how you spent the funds we disbursed to you during the year. December 31st marks the end of the year and the Annual Report is due on April 1st of the following year. It is fairly easy to fill out, provided you'ʹve kept decent records. In January of each year, we will send you an email asking you to complete the report with a direct link to the online Annual Report Form. We will contact you three times via email to request that you submit the report.
The Annual Report is submitted by completing a form on our website (you will need to be logged in to access it). The form will provide the total amount of funds received and disbursed for that year. The following information is required in the report: A narrative account detailing your sponsored activities during the prior year. This narrative should explain what you accomplished towards the development and production of your project, how this furthered the charitable purposes pre-‐‑approved by Fractured Atlas pursuant to your Fiscal Sponsorship Grant Agreement, and the estimated number of artists and the general public that have been served by your work. We prompt you to provide a narrative with three guiding questions on the report. A budget is also required that details your actual expenses for the funds spent on the project, the expense breakdown and project revenue. Work samples and documentation that demonstrate what you have accomplished are not required, but you are encouraged to upload them to the annual report form.
If you fail to file your Annual Report by the deadline, your fund will be automatically frozen. Your project will not be able to accept donations or release funds while frozen. Fractured Atlas may require the return of all funds released for the purposes of the project if the annual report is not submitted.
Important Note: Programmatic and/or Financial AUDITS
At any time, Fractured Atlas may decide to audit a sponsored project’s activities to ensure that the money we disburse is being used for the purposes originally outlined in the application for fiscal sponsorship. Since the money we disburse must only be used for approved activities and programs, we reserve the right to request documentation to certify the project is being produced and executed as stated in the approved application. These audits are serious, so it’s important that you keep decent records of your activities.
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IRS Reporting Requirements
Income disbursed from your sponsored fund is generally considered taxable income and must be reported to the IRS accordingly. The legal entity listed on your fiscal sponsorship application is the entity responsible for reporting the income, even if we made a an electronic fund transfer to a bank account owned by another entity. If your project receives a noncash gift, the value of the noncash gift will be considered a grant from Fractured Atlas and is therefore also taxable income. Keep in mind that Fractured Atlas will only issue 1099s to the legal entity listed on the fund. It is the fiscally sponsored project’s responsibility to issue any required tax documents to contractors or vendors.
Sole Proprietors/Individuals/LLCs: At the end of every calendar year, Fractured Atlas will issue a Form 1099-‐‑Misc. statement (“1099”) only to projects for which Fractured Atlas has released more than $600 during the calendar year. The 1099 will list the name and tax payer ID number (SSN or EIN) of the project that we have on file. This information is reported to the IRS as required by law. When you file your taxes, it’s important that you report all of your expenses to offset this income, so that you don’t end up owing any more tax than necessary on money that has been granted to you from your sponsored fund. If Fracturd Atlas releases less than $600 from your sponsored fund during the calendar year, you will not receive a 1099 from Fractured Atlas and you should check with your accountant to determine how to file this income on your taxes.
Corporations: 1099s are not issued to corporations. If the legal entity responsible for your fund is a corporation, you will not receive a 1099; HOWEVER, the entity’s board is still responsible for filing the appropriate corporate tax return and reporting appropriate income. If you have formed a corporation, you should find an accountant to advise you on your tax responsibilities.
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Raising Money from Individuals
Federal Tax Law 101
Soliciting tax-‐‑deductible donations is the basis of every successful fundraising campaign and is the best way to start, but not all contributions are fully tax-‐‑deductible. The following is offered only as general information with respect to some of the most common issues and should not be relied upon, particularly because there may be many exceptions, conditions, and restrictions not addressed here. For tax advice, you should confer with a tax lawyer or an accountant. In any event, you should never give tax or legal advice to donors or potential donors – they should contact their their own tax professionals for advice. If you’d like to familiarize yourself with the IRS’s policies surrounding deductiblity you can review the IRS guide to Charitable Contributions here: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-‐‑pdf/p526.pdf
Note, however, that because donors can only deduct up to a certain percentage of their adjusted gross income (usually 30% or 50%), whether any particular person can deduct any particular gift depends on their unique income and tax situation.
Donations of CASH OR PUBLICLY-TRADED SECURITIES to a 501(c)(3) are generally FULLY DEDUCTIBLE!
Donations of cash and publicly-‐‑traded stocks and bonds are tax-‐‑deductible when given to a 501(c)(3) organization like Fractured Atlas. Please contact us if you have a donor who is interested in contributing stocks or bonds.
Donations of most PHYSICAL PROPERTY to a 501(c)(3) public charity are FULLY DEDUCTIBLE! Donations of most kinds of physical property that are used for the public charity’s charitable purposes are generally tax-‐‑deductible based on the donor’s reasonable estimate of the item’s fair market value at the
Type of Transaction: Fully-‐‑
Deductible Partially Deductible
NOT Deductible
Donation of Cash or Cash Equivalents x
Donation of Physical Property x
Purchase of Benefit Tickets, Auction Items, etc.
x
Donation of Services X
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time of the contribution. Office supplies, equipment, etc. are included in this category. Gifts valued at $500 or more are subject to special requirements. Please refer to page 19 which explains how to properly report donations of physical property.
Purchase of BENEFIT TICKETS, AUCTION ITEMS, etc. from a 501(c)(3) are PARTIALLY DEDUCTIBLE!
When a donor gets something in exchange for their contribution (“quid pro quo contribution”), he/she is only entitled to a tax-‐‑deduction for the amount contributed in excess of what the donor received in exchange. In other words, if we have a fundraising event and sell tickets for $50, but provide entertainment and refreshments with a fair market value of $20, then only $30 of the ticket price is tax-‐‑deductible. It is generally the recipient organization’s responsibility to make a good faith estimate of the fair market value of the “net contribution” (i.e., the value of goods and/or services received by the donor). Fractured Atlas requires the project to use the “Standard Text for Partially Deductible Gifts” disclosure statement (see below) whenever it solicits a quid pro quo contribution [for which a donor makes a payment.
Additionally, for any quid pro quo contribution, Fractured Atlas requires you to enter the “net contribution” amount as the “Non-‐‑deductible Amount” in the Online Donation Report form when processing donation checks that are partially deductible. We can accept credit card payments for partially deductible gifts only if you set up giving levels on your online profile in advance of receiving the donation. The only ticketing website that is compatible with the Fractured Atlas fiscal sponsorship program is www.Artful.ly.
Donations of SERVICES to or the USE OF ASSETS by a 501(c)(3) are NOT DEDUCTIBLE!
This includes just about any donation that isn’t cash, publicly-‐‑traded securities, or physical property with an objectively quantifiable value. Rent of any kind is considered the use of an asset, so this is not a deductible gift. Free legal, accouting, graphic design, web design or printing services are also not deductible under the law. All of these things may be unquestionably charitable, but the IRS nonetheless does not allow the donor to claim a charitable deduction on his or her tax return. Here’s the good news: if someone wants to donate services to you, they can donate them directly to you without involving Fractured Atlas or going through your sponsored fund (thus saving you the 7% admin fee). Fractured Atlas will not process any donations of services or the use of asssets by a project.
Soliciting Individual Gifts
Statistically, individual donors are the largest source of contributed revenue to nonprofit arts organizations. Asking people for money may seem like a strange thing to do, but it is standard operating procedure among charities. The best way to start raising money is to craft an appeal of ask letter and send it to everyone you know. We provide a downloadable template on your fiscal sponsorship page to help
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guide you in this process; however, before you send anything out asking for money or mentioning Fractured Atlas, our staff must approve the text you plan to use to ensure that you are accurately representing the relationship between your project and Fractured Atlas. If you receive donations in response to an unapproved solicitation, we may not be able to accept them and you may have to return them to your donors.
Standard Text
We strive to make text approvals as easy as possible by providing standard text to use in your individual solicitations. We provide versions for use when soliciting fully deductible and partially deductible gifts. Please include this text verbatim in your appeal letters and on any websites that solicit donations or mention Fractured Atlas.
Standard Text for Fully Deductible Gifts (if the donor gets NO goods or services in exchange)
[PROJECT NAME] is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-‐‑profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of [PROJECT NAME] must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-‐‑deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Standard Text for Partially Deductible Gifts (if the donor GETS goods or services in exchange)
[PROJECT NAME] is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-‐‑profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of [PROJECT NAME] must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only. The value of [GOODS OR SERVICES RECEIVED BY DONOR] is $[XX]. Any contribution above that amount is tax-‐‑deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Guidelines and Requirements for Partially Deductible Gifts Each time a project provides goods or services in exchange for a donation, the project is required to report the value of the goods or services to the donor and to Fractured Atlas. The value of the goods or services should be based on a good faith estimate. A project may use any reasonable method to estimate the fair market value (FMV) of goods or services it provided to a donor, as long as it applies the method in good faith. The project may estimate the FMV of goods or services that generally are not commercially available by using the FMV of similar or comparable goods or services. Goods or services may be similar or comparable even if they are not exactly the same as the goods or services being valued.
Text Approvals
Please email your individual solicitations to [email protected] for approval. The most important thing we need to see when reviewing text is the correct version of the standard text included
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somewhere in the material. For website text approval, please send all of the text that will be on the website along with a link to the website. We will respond with either an approval notice or a request for you to edit and change any problematic text. Solicitation text on your website must be approved as well – more on this below under Online Donations.
Timeline: Text approvals for individual solicitations must be sent to our staff for review at least 5 business days before you plan to send them out. If there is anything problematic, we will contact you with the revisions that need to be made and ask you to resend for final approval.
Please do not use the following words in solicitation materials. These words have specific legal meanings and are not appropriate to describe the fiscal sponsorship relationship or donations: Conduit; umbrella; pass-‐‑through; fiscal agent; earmark; fiscal agency; intermediary; partner; or laundering.
Donations by Check
Who do people write the check to? Donors should make their checks payable to “Fractured Atlas”. It is extremely important that all checks are made out to “Fractured Atlas” ONLY. We cannot accept checks that are made out to you, your company or your “project name/Fractured Atlas” and we will return them to you if you send them to us. Also, please DO NOT endorse checks made payable to Fractured Atlas.
When should I send donation checks to the Fractured Atlas office? Donation checks should be sent to the Fractured Atlas office immediately after you receive them from the donor and enter them in the online Donation Report Form. Your donors will expect their checks to be cashed in a timely manner. Our bank will not accept checks that are older than 6 months. If a donation check is more than two months old, we will ask you to verify with the donor that the check is still active before we can process it.
Can I send cash? Sorry, we can’t accept bills or coins. We can accept checks and donors can give online by credit/debit card. You can accept cash donations directly, separate and apart from your fiscal sponsorship and at your own risk. These donations are solely your responsibility (including the responsibility to ensure proper registrations and/or licenses). Fractured Atlas will not accept nor issue a tax receipt for cash donations.
Do you accept money orders? We can’t accept donations in the form of money orders. Cashier’s checks drawn off the donor’s account are okay, but we do not accept money orders.
What is a Major Gift Letter and why do you need it? Donations of $1,000 or above made by check require a Major Gift letter. We need this letter on file for each gift of $1,000 or more for our annual accounting audit. Since the precise language used is important to ensure the tax-‐‑deductibility of the gift, we ask that you use the form we provide for download on the “My Fiscal Sponsorship” page of the website. Fractured Atlas must receive this form in order to process the donation and make such funds available for release to your project . It’s best to submit it digitally when you report the donation online or mail in a hard copy with the check.
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Do I have to do anything to process the donation? Yes. Once you receive a check of any amount, you must report the gift to us by using the online Donation Report Form on the Fractured Atlas website. Donors must send donation checks directly to YOU, not to us. It is your responsibility to enter all the required information into this form before sending any checks to the Fractured Atlas office. Please remember to proofread the Donation Report Form as the information you enter may be reflected verbatim in the receipt we issue. Please upload a copy of the major gift letter to this form for donations of $1,000 or more. After you have entered the donations online, please send the checks to the Fractured Atlas office for processing. If there are errors or problems, we will return the checks to you with a note explaining the error and asking you to correct it.
What happens if there is a problem with a donor’s check? In cases where a donor’s check has been returned by our bank for any reason (most commonly for insufficient funds), we will alert you to the situation and immediately reduce your fund balance to reflect the net change. If a replacement check is received from the donor, it can be processed into your fund at that time. It is your responsibility to contact the donor and request a replacement check.
Step-by-Step Guide to Using the Online Donation Report Form
(1) Start at the My Fiscal Sponsorship page.
(2) Click the link to “Donations” and “Report Monetary Donations.”
(3) Select an EXISTING DONOR from the drop down menu or select NEW DONOR to create a new donor record. When creating a new donor, please indicate the type of donor (INDIVIDUAL, BUSINESS/CORPORATION, FOUNDATION, GOVERNMENT AGENCY) and fill out the required fields to process the gift.
(4) The mailing address for the donor is required and the donation WILL NOT be processed without it.
(5) If you have received one donation from two individuals with different names (such as a married couple), you may choose to enter only one name to report the gift or you may enter the full name of the first donor and the first name of the second donor in the “FIRST NAME” field and list the last name for the second donor in the “LAST NAME” field.
(6) When the donor RECEIVED NOTHING IN EXCHANGE FOR THE GIFT, you should enter the full amount of the donation in the “TOTAL AMOUNT RECEIVED” field.
(7) When a donor gets goods or services in exchange for a contribution, you must indicate THE VALUE OF THE GOODS OR SERVICES received in the “NON-‐‑DEDUCTIBLE PORTION” field. The donation receipt we issue will cite the total gift and list the value of the goods or services received in exchange for the gift. If your donation is fully deductible, make sure the “NON-‐‑DEDUCTIBLE PORTION” field reads 0.
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(8) If the gift is eligible for a matching contribution from the donor’s employer, please check the Match Eligible box and include any forms that need to be completed with the checks when you send them to our office.
(9) If the donation is a Major Gift ($1,000 or more), please provide a copy of the Major Gift Letter signed by the donor. You can upload a digital copy of the Major Gift Letter directly to the Donation Report Form or if you don’t have a digital copy, the form can be mailed in to our office, or faxed to us.
Timeline: Once a contribution is processed, it is held for seven (7) calendar days before it is available for release. Please plan accordingly.
Online Donations
We accept online gifts up to $20,000 per transaction through our website and we do NOT require the Major Gift letter for any online donations. Online giving is the easiest and fastest way for you to raise money, so we recommend you take advantage of it whenever possible.
Web Solicitations -‐‑ To solicit donations on your website, please use the Standard Text for Individuals and link your site to your unique donation page. You can find your unique link on the “My Fiscal Sponsorship” page by clicking “Donations” and the “Share/Embed” link. Online solicitation text must be approved by our staff. Please send a link to your donation page to [email protected] to get the online donation text approved by our staff.
Important Notes: Credit Card Processing
(1) You may NOT collect credit card information from donors and submit online donations on their behalf. Collecting and storing credit card information in this manner is insecure and potentially illegal. Donors must either make the gift themselves or they can call our office and have our staff do it over the phone. Please don’t call us on their behalf.
(2) Partially deductible online donations through your online profile are only acceptable in cases where you'ʹve set up giving levels. Your online donation page is not an online credit card processing service for tickets, workshop fees, or payment for services rendered. If you'ʹd like to offer donors something in exchange for an online contribution, you must create giving levels on the Fractured Atlas website. (see Giving Levels below for more details).
(3) Fractured Atlas may pass along fees for credit card transactions that are disputed by the donor. Please make sure to alert donors that their credit card statement will list Fractured Atlas for any donation transactions. If a donor disputes a credit card charge, we must pass along the fee associated with the dispute to you. You will be charged $25 for the initial dispute and an additional $25 if
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Fractured Atlas fails to resolve the dispute and the charge is reversed. If you do not have sufficient funds to cover this fee in your sponsored fund, you will be asked to pay the fee via credit card.
Giving Levels Create giving levels on the Fractured Atlas website so you can offer gifts in exchange for donations. The giving levels live on your project profile. We strongly encourage you to use giving levels to define standard contribution levels for your project’s donors and offer reward packages in return. These are easy to add and hide from the My Fiscal Sponsorship section of the website.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Giving Level
(1) Start at the My Fiscal Sponsorship page.
(2) Click the link to “Donations"ʺ and “Giving Levels.”
(3) Click the link to “Add giving level.”
(4) Name your giving level and give a description of the giving level. It’s best to mention details about what the donation will cover and what the donor will receive in exchange.
(5) Provide donation details regarding the total amount of the donation and the non-‐‑deductible portion.
(6) Once you are ready to publish the giving level, click "ʺI'ʹm Sure -‐‑ Request Approval"ʺ and the Fractured Atlas staff will receive an automated email requesting approval.
(7) If you would like to remove your giving levels from your online profile, please click on "ʺDonations"ʺ and "ʺGiving Levels."ʺ On the giving level you would like to remove from your online profile, click "ʺMake Non-‐‑Public."ʺ This will remove the giving level from your online profile.
Timeline: Once you click request approval, it can take up to five (5) business days for our staff to review and approve it. You will receive an email once it has been approved and the giving level will be published on your project profile under the "ʺGiving Levels"ʺ tab. Please plan accordingly.
Crowdfunding Tools
Indiegogo
Indiegogo is a collaborative way to fund ideas. Your fiscally sponsored project can use Indiegogo’s tools and process to enhance your fundraising campaign and complement the tax-‐‑deductions made possible by Fractured Atlas.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating your first Indiegogo campaign
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(1) Start at the My Fiscal Sponsorship page.
(2) Click the link to “Accessorize!” and “Indiegogo”.
(3) Click on “Create a NEW Campaign on Indiegogo” to connect your fiscally sponsored project to Indiegogo.
(4) Follow the prompts to set up an Indiegogo account or login.
(5) Once you'ʹre logged into your Indiegogo account, you can follow additional prompts to build your campaign on the Indiegogo website.
(6) Remember, if you offer your donors a perk in exchange for their contribution, please make sure to list the partially deductible value when setting up the perk.
(7) Click “REVIEW AND LAUNCH” when you’re ready for Fractured Atlas to review and approve the campaign.
(8) After you launch the campaign, Fractured Atlas will review it and make it live on the Indiegogo website.
Are you launching a subsequent campaign? If you are working on a connecting a campaign to Fractured Atlas that is not your first campaign, please contact our staff for assistance.
Timeline: Once you click ”REVIEW AND LAUNCH,” it can take up to five (5) business days for our staff to review and approve it. You will receive an email once it has been approved. Please plan accordingly.
Credit Card Contributions: People contribute to your project on Indiegogo via credit/debit cards and PayPal. All funds raised for your project via Indiegogo will be processed by PayPal and will be disbursed to Fractured Atlas by PayPal. Fractured Atlas can’t accept checks for Indiegogo campaigns, and checks processed by Fractured Atlas cannot appear on the Indiegogo campaign.
Indiegogo Fees: Because Indiegogo uses a third party processor, the fee for donations through Indiegogo will be 10%. The fee will remain at 10% regardless of whether or not you meet your goal.
Crowdfunding Tips
(1) Check out our crowdfunding webinar.
(2) There is no need to have multiple campaigns on multiple websites. Choose one and spend your time and energy focusing on that. Each platform has a unique design and all offer similar functionality. A couple of facts that might help you decide:
• Indiegogo was founded in 2008, making it one of the first Crowdfunding platforms for creative projects.
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(3) Kickstarter is another great crowdfunding platform, but we do not have a partnership with them at this point in time. If you decide to create a Kickstarter campaign, this will be completely independent of Fractured Atlas and the donations will not be tax-‐‑deductible through your fiscal sponsorship. We do have a curated page on Kickstarter and if you choose to build a campaign on their website, please let us know and we will add it to the curated page.
Donations Made by Wire Transfer
We can accept donations made by wire transfer and there is a $12 fee to process donations of this kind. To process a gift via wire, please send the donor’s contact information to [email protected]. Our staff will then contact the donor directly to set up the wire transfer. The donor will be required to complete the major gift letter for donations of $1,000 or more. The $12 fee covers what we are charged by our bank for these transactions and the staff time required to execute them.
Timeline: Once an online or wire contribution is received, it is held for seven (7) calendar days before it is available for release. Please plan accordingly.
Matching Gifts
Many businesses offer a benefit of employment called an Employee Matching Gift program. Programs of this kind match a donation made by an employee to a charity with a corporate donation to the same charity. In almost all cases, the donor and the charity (meaning Fractured Atlas) must complete some paperwork to process a gift of this kind. Projects should not complete any sections of the matching paperwork – all forms should be sent to our staff for completion. Some companies handle their matches through a third party website, and the donor should send the link to Fractured Atlas for processing. If a business offers matching funds for volunteer time to your project, Fractured Atlas will require that the project show documentation of the volunteer time.
Timeline: Matching gift checks usually take anywhere from 3-‐‑9 months to arrive once the paperwork has been submitted. We will alert you when a matching gift has been received and processed into your fund.
Noncash Donations
Fractured Atlas can accept donations of certain noncash physical items for the purposes of sponsored projects. We require the Noncash Donation letter, which can be found on the website. Without it, we can’t offer a receipt and the gift may not be tax-‐‑deductible. The donor should complete and sign the Noncash Donation letter and send it to you by email, fax, or mail. You should then report it to Fractured Atlas by clicking the link to “Report Donation of Property” on the “My Fiscal Sponsorship” section of the website. Make sure to fill in the “Description of the donated items” with the description the donor provided on the noncash donation letter and that it is sufficient to accurately describe the items and their conditions. Make sure to also attach the donation letter to the report form. Once you’ve reported the donation, please email, fax, or mail the Noncash Donation letter to the Fractured Atlas office. Our staff will make a decision about
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whether Fractured Atlas will accept the item, and if so, will then ask you to confirm that you’ve received the donated item(s). If the donor estimates the value of the gift at $250 or more, you are required to take a photograph of the donated property and send it to Fractured Atlas before we are able to accept the donation and issue a tax receipt
The 7% administative fee will be based on the total value of the items indicated by your donor on the noncash donation form, and will be charged at the time the donation is processed, which means that you must have a sufficient balance in your sponsored fund to cover the fee. We recommend that all noncash donations be inspected by the project before the donation is processed and a receipt issued, to ensure that the donor’s estimated value is appropriate. If the donor does not require a receipt, then it is unneccesary to process the gift through your sponsored fund.
Noncash donations made to Fractured Atlas for the purposes of a fiscally sponsored project are transferred to the project in the form of a grant. This means your project may need to report the value of the noncash gift as taxable income.
Important Note: Vehicle Donations and Airline Tickets/Miles Donations
Unfortunately, due to the complicated IRS rules associated with vehicle donations, Fractured Atlas is not able to accept vehicles donated for the purposes of our sponsored projects. Fractured Atlas is also not able to accept donations of airline miles or airline tickets. Please see the chart below for more details regarding noncash donations.
Fundraising Events
If you are planning a fundraising event or benefit, we strongly encourage you to contact our staff to discuss the event during the planning stage. Anytime you provide some kind of benefit to a donor in
Type of Noncash donation: Fully-‐‑
Deductible NOT Deductible – Fractured
Atlas cannot accept
Tangible items: food, equipment, gift cards, anything you can touch with your hands
x
Donations of rent or space x
Donation of a person’s time x
Donation of services – this includes rental equipment x
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exchange for a contribution (such as entertainment, refreshments, goodie bags, ticket discounts, etc.) you MUST notify us of the benefit(s) the donor received, as well as an estimate of the fair market value. Only the portion of the donation in excess of that estimated value is tax deductible. To protect both your donor and us, it’s important that we don’t over-‐‑report the deductible amount. The value of the item given in exchange must be a good faith estimate of the item’s fair market value and should be listed in the “non-‐‑deductible portion” on the Donation Report Form. Please remember, Fractured Atlas will not accept any cash donations and any cash donations accepted by you directly are done so at your own risk and are solely your responsibility (including the responsibility to ensure proper registrations and/or licenses).
Donation Receipts and Thank You Letters
Fractured Atlas will generate a tax receipt for every eligible contribution that is processed by Fractured Atlas. You should plan to send a thank you letter for every contribution you receive, regardless of the amount or deductibility to the donor. We have different procedures regarding how receipts are sent to donors depending on the amount.
Donations Under $1,000 For donations under $1,000 made by check we will email the receipt to you and you must send this onto the donor within two weeks of receiving it, with a personalized thank you letter. It is very important that you enclose the tax receipt we send for check donations under $1,000 with your thank you letter so the donor has legal documentation of the contribution. You may keep a copy for your records, but the donor should get a copy we send to you within two weeks of receipt. For donations under $1,000 made by credit card we will email the receipt to the donor and an email to you to alert you of the donation. You do not need to send a receipt to a donor who contributed by credit card, but we strongly suggest you send your personal thanks.
Donations of $1,000 and Over For donations of $1,000 or more, we will send a receipt directly to the donor with a thank you letter from Fractured Atlas. We will notify you by email if the donation was received and processed from an online gift. You should plan to send a personal thank you letter as well.
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Raising Money through Grants
This information pertains to all institutions that make grants including corporations, public funding agencies and private foundations. Please read this section in its entirety before contacting our staff regarding an application.
Eligibility
You must first raise $1,000 for your project from individual sources other than yourself and immediate family before you’ll be eligible to submit a letter of inquiry or apply for grants. Donations to your own project and earned revenue do not count towards this requirement. If you can provide proof that you have been awarded a grant within the last two years for the same project, you may be exempt from this requirement. We implemented this policy to protect the integrity of the fiscal sponsorship program and to maximize your chances of being funded when you do submit grant applications. It may seem unpleasant, but this rule exists for a couple of important reasons:
(1) Best practices dictate that you should wait to approach institutional funders until after you’ve established a base of individual support;
(2) Funders have consistently told us that they don’t want to receive grant applications from projects that have no committed base of support for the activity.
Ultimately, by meeting the $1,000 eligibility requirement, you are improving your chances of being funded. Having committed funds on your project budget shows that you are experienced with handling funds, and that your project is already on its way to being successfully funded.
It is your responsibility to investigate the guidelines and eligibility requirements for each grant source before contacting Fractured Atlas. Whenever possible, we recommend that you contact the funder to inquire if they accept applications using a fiscal sponsor. If they do, you should ask what application documents should pertain to the sponsor and which should relate to your project specifically. Many foundations will require supporting documentation from us, such as financial statements, information about our board of directors, tax returns, etc. If you cannot get an answer from the foundation, our staff will review the guidelines and make a determination.
Standard Text
As with individual solicitations, we aim to make letters of inquiry (LOIs) and grant application approvals as easy as possible by providing Standard Text to use in your LOIs and grant applications. You may include it in your cover letter or within the narrative at your discretion but it needs to be somewhere in your LOI or application.
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Standard Text for Foundations, Corporations and Government Agencies [PROJECT NAME] is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-‐‑profit arts service organization. Fractured Atlas will receive grants for the charitable purposes of [PROJECT NAME], provide oversight to ensure that grant funds are used in accordance with grant agreements, and provide reports as required by the grantor. Contributions for the charitable purposes of [PROJECT NAME] must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-‐‑deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Text Approvals Grant applications and letters of inquiry (LOIs) are much more involved than soliciting individual donations and require close contact with our staff to prepare the required documents and submit a complete application. The standard text must be included verbatim in all grant inquiries and it is the first step to get approval.
All grant proposals and LOIs must be reviewed by us prior to submission and grant award checks should be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only. Fractured Atlas reserves the right to deny the submission of LOIs or grant applications at any time. To protect the integrity of the program and to ensure that grant makers have a positive experience with Fractured Atlas projects, we try only to submit sponsored proposals that are appropriate and well presented.
Once you have identified an appropriate source, you should fax or email the following documents and information to begin the application process on our end.
(1) the application deadline, full contact information for the funding source, and link to the funding source website (if available).
(2) any and all application forms and cover letters (or the LOI).
(3) The completed narrative sections and projected budgets.
(4) a list of any and all required supplemental documents (Board of Directors, Audited Financials).
(5) your “ask” amount along with the funding source’s average or typical grant amount.
We need to keep this information on file since we are legally the applicant of record and must be available to answer any questions if contacted by the funder about your proposal.
Once we have reviewed everything and you have made any necessary changes, we will send the following documents to you via email as a PDF:
(1) Endorsement letter – this certifies that you are sponsored by Fractured Atlas and provides our contact information in case the funder needs to get in touch with our staff for any reason.
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(2) IRS Letter of Determination – this is what certifies our status as a tax exempt, charitable organization and is typically required for grant applications.
Timeline: Grant application materials (including LOIs) must be submitted for review at least 10 business days before the grant deadline. This time allows our staff to prepare the documents you need and provides you with time to make any changes before the application is approved. We prefer to accept application materials via email, but fax is also acceptable. Please send these documents to [email protected] or fax to 212-‐‑277-‐‑8025. See below for rush fees.
Grant Award Notification & Contracts: Most award (and denial) letters are sent to Fractured Atlas directly. When we receive notification regarding a pending grant application, we will contact you immediately to inform you of the funder’s decision. Grant awards often require a contract of some kind and in most cases, this contract is to be signed by the Fractured Atlas staff, not the sponsored project (since Fractured Atlas is the actual charity receiving the funds). Should you receive an award letter and grant contract, please contact our staff before signing the contract.
Grant Award Report Requirements: Some foundations require a report detailing how the funds were used and how the project succeeded in relation to the original application. Reports of this kind are usually completed by both the project and the Fractured Atlas staff, depending on the funder. This is usually something that can be done at no cost to you. However, there are rare situations when elaborate or extensive documentation is required (usually when dealing with government funding agencies), and we may need to charge for our time in those cases.
Online Grant Applications
The bad news: Online applications often create problems for sponsored applicants for two reasons: there is no way to distinguish the project from the sponsor and many systems only allow one application per organization. Since Fractured Atlas’s program has to be as inclusive as possible, we cannot allow one project to apply at the expense of the other artists we serve.
The good news: There are a few funders who have built their online applications to accept multiple applications for sponsored projects under the primary account for the sponsoring organization. In cases like this, you are certainly allowed to apply through us.
Many online applications (especially for corporate funders) require a tax ID in order to access the application. This means that Fractured Atlas staff must set up the account for you. In some cases, we may have to complete the application for you, and will send you your portion of the application to complete. Most of these applications can be handled within the one hour time allotment, but please note that there may be fees for applications that take more than one hour of cumulative staff time. Please see fee information below.
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Timeline: In all cases with online applications, please send the application information to [email protected] more than 10 business days out so that we can adivse you on the best way to proceed.
Corporate Sponsorship and Corporate Grant Applications
Corporate sponsors offer in-‐‑kind donations, corporate sponsorship, and corporate grants. When approaching any corporate funder, you must have the inquiry/ proposal/application/package approved by a Fractured Atlas staff member before sending it out. It is up to each project to determine what the corporation requires and what type of support they offer. The standard text for foundations, corporations and government agencies must be included in all inquiries for corporate funding.
Eligibility
The eligibility requirement to apply for corporate funding is the same as the eligibility requirement to apply for grants. Please see grant eligibility above for more details.
Timeline: All corporate funding materials must be submitted for review at least 10 business days before the deadline. This time allows our staff to prepare the documents you need and provides you with time to make any changes before the application is approved. We prefer to accept materials via email, but fax is also acceptable. Please send these documents to [email protected] or fax to 212-‐‑277-‐‑8025. See below for rush fees.
Grant Application and Corporate Sponsorship Fees
Rush Text Approval Fee: There is no cost to review and prepare the documents for LOIs and grant applications if you manage your deadlines well; however, if you need a response in fewer than 10 business days, we must charge a $75 rush fee. Paying the rush fee guarantees review, feedback, and approval by the funder deadline.
Grant Administration Fee: We allocate each LOI and grant application with one hour of staff time to review it and provide what is needed for final submission. If more than one hour of a Fractured Atlas staff member’s time is required to help you submit a grant or file a final report, we will need to charge you for the time required at a rate of $50/hr. You will be notified of this before we do anything in cases where it is applicable.
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Releasing Funds
Contributions and grant money donated for your sponsored project stay in a restricted fund until you need it for project related expenses. All payments from your sponsored fund must be requested through the Fund Release Request form on our website. To request a disbursement, go to the My Fiscal Sponsorship page of the website and click on the “Fund Releases” icon and “Request Funds”. You’ll need to outline how much money you need, the purpose of the funds, and identify the bank account for electronic fund transfer.
Purpose of the Funds: Please use the drop down menu to select the appropriate expense line item(s). Please enter the request amount in the appropriate box that matches your expense(s). All boxes must have numerical figures only. If none of the boxes match your expense, please enter the amount in the “Other” box and provide specific details of your project related expenses. If you fail to provide a specific expense related to your project, the request will probably be denied. If you enter a description into the “Other” field that is one of the line item options, you will be required to edit your fund release request to reflect the correct line item.
Requests of $5,000 or more: For all fund release requests of $5,000 or more, you will be asked to provide documentation for your expenses. Appropriate documentation includes signed invoices, contracts, receipts, purchase orders, and quotes. Documentation can be submitted either by uploading a document to the fund release request form, in person, via email or via fax and will be required to approve the request. Please don’t try to dodge this rule by requesting $4,999. Fractured Atlas reserves the right to request documentation for fund release requests of any amount and to request additional documentation if what is provided is insufficient.
Method of Payment
We normally issue payments in the form of electronic funds transfer (EFT).
Electronic Fund Transfers (EFTs): To have your funds transferred electronically, you must first email Fractured Atlas a voided check along with the completed EFT sign-‐‑up form to [email protected], or fax them to 212-‐‑277-‐‑8025. These can also be mailed to the Fractured Atlas office. Once Fractured Atlas receives this information, your checking account will be set up as a payee option that you can select when you request a fund release. Fund releases issued by EFT can take up to 1-‐‑3 business days to show up in your account once initiated by Fractured Atlas. You can download the EFT sign-‐‑up form from the My Fiscal Sponsorship page of the website.
Wire Transfer: In rare cases, we are able to facilitate a Wire Transfer payment but it requires staff permission to execute the transaction and we charge a $25 fee to cover the associated bank charges we incur.
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Administrative Fee: In order to defray Fractured Atlas’s costs of administering the fiscal sponsorship, an administrative fee will be charged equal to a percentage of any donation designated for the project. The schedule of such administrative charges is as follows:
a. if less than $150,000 has been raised across all contributions in total for the purposes of the Project: 7%;
b. if at least $150,000 but less than $500,000 has been raised across all contributions in total for the purposes of the Project: 6% if the donation is made by check or 7% if the donation is made by credit card and/or online;
c. if at least $500,000 but less than $1,000,000 has been raised across all contributions in total for the purposes of the Project: 5% if the donation is made by check or 7% if the donation is made by credit card and/or online;
d. if $1,000,000 or more has been raised across all contributions in total for the purposes of the Project: 4% if the donation is made by check or 7% if the donation is made by credit card and/or online.
Important Notes:
Fund release requests by EFT are typically approved every weekday during business hours.
If a project provides incorrect bank account information to Fractured Atlas and the transfer is rejected, Fractured Atlas may pass along the $10 fee to the project from our EFT provider.
If you need to edit or withdraw a pending fund release request, go to the My Fiscal Sponsorship page of the website and click on the “Fund Releases” icon and “Pending Fund Releases”.
If there is an emergency or unique situation requiring Fractured Atlas to issue a fund release by check, Fractured Atlas staff will approve this on a case by case basis. Fractured Atlas reserves the right to charge a $15 fee plus the cost of shipping for cutting a fund release by check. If for some reason Fractured Atlas needs to cut a replacement check, Fractured Atlas may pass along the $50 check replacement fee to the project.
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Promoting Your Project
There are a wide variety of options for promoting your project through Fractured Atlas. We love to promote our members and we try to highlight fiscally sponsored projects as much as possible on our website.
(1) Update your fiscal sponsorship online profile to include a video or image and a tagline. This will enter your online profile into the rotation of projects highlighted on the “Meet Our Sponsored Projects” section of the website.
(2) If you’re a Flickr user, make sure you update your member profile with your Flickr username, so that
we can find your Flickr photos. We’ve added a checkbox where you can grant (or revoke) permission for Fractured Atlas to use your photos in our promo materials. If you say it’s okay, we may use your images here or there.
(3) We’ll provide attribution wherever possible, which is hopefully good for some exposure. (For example,
our annual report gets sent to loads of major funders, etc.) (4) Make sure you are posting your events and news to the Member Events and Member News which can
both be found under “Community"ʺ on the website. (5) Become a fan of Fractured Atlas on Facebook and feel free to post photographs, videos, and
information about your events and work on the Fractured Atlas Facebook wall. (6) Fractured Atlas is a participant in YouTube'ʹs Non-‐‑Profit Program. We'ʹve got a YouTube channel
hosted at www.youtube.com/LiberateTheArtist where we'ʹll post our own video content as well as that of our members. This is a great way for the Fractured Atlas community to leverage our strength in numbers for greater exposure. If you'ʹve got a video that you'ʹd like included in the Fractured Atlas channel, just post it on YouTube and submit the form to let us know how to find your video. The form can be submitted at: http://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/members/youtube_form
(7) Fractured Atlas has a curated page on Kickstarter’s website. If you are operating a campaign on
Kickstarter and would like to be added to our curated page, please send us an email at [email protected] and we will add your campaign to the curated page.
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Closing Out Your Sponsored Fund
Your sponsorship may exist in perpetuity as long as your membership remains active. When the time comes for you to end the sponsorship, there are two ways to close out your sponsored fund.
Terminate: If you terminate your membership with Fractured Atlas, your fiscal sponsorship will be terminated, since membership is a requirement of sponsorship. If you terminate your membership before you have submitted your Annual Report, you are still required to submit an Annual Report. Our staff can answer any questions about this.
If you have funds left when you terminate, a staff member will contact you about next steps.
Expire: If you have completed your project and want to maintain your membership with Fractured Atlas, please contact [email protected]. We have the ability to “expire” your project in our system once you have submitted your final Annual Report. Marking a project “expired” in our database allows you the ability to apply for a new project in the future.
Submitting an Expansion Application Projects are only able to fundraise for the activities included in the project description of their application and if the scope of these activities changes, you must submit an expansion application for approval by our Board of Directors. You will need to submit any changes prior to the deadline to be included in the board review, so please keep this in mind as this process will temporarily freeze your fund and you will not be able to accept donations or withdraw funds until you have been approved. Please contact our staff to discuss this process further.
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Prohibited Activities
The following is a list of some things that are prohibited because of state & federal laws or because our infrastructure cannot support this type of activity. Obviously this isn’t an exhaustive list, but these are the ones we run into most frequently. Please know that we don’t create rules to make your life difficult – these policies are in place to ensure that Fractured Atlas retains its good standing and charitable status and so you don’t get yourself into trouble.
Using our Employee Identification Number without our knowledge or permission – We will give it out for appropriate requests & uses, but it cannot be used in cases where it may appear that you are representing to another party that you are acting on behalf of Fractured Atlas and we have not given you such authority. If you need it for something, please contact us via email at [email protected] with the reason you need it and we will give it to you in appropriate cases. (If it’s for a website or grant, don’t forget to send us the link.) Once Fractured Atlas provides you with our EIN, you still need permission to use it on a case-‐‑by-‐‑case basis in the future.
Granting money from your fund to another entity – Money that is disbursed to you for project related expenses must remain under your direct control. You are certainly allowed to pay people for work they perform, but you are not allowed to give them a chunk of cash to use at their discretion without directly supervising the funds and restricting how they can be used. If you are planning on giving grants, scholarships or cash awards, please speak to our staff.
Collecting credit card information from your donors – This presents serious legal risk and liability for yourself and potentially Fractured Atlas -‐‑ don’t do it.
Financing your project through private investments/equity agreements -‐‑ Financing a project through private investments or equity agreements is quite tricky to do legally. We are not able to fiscally sponsor a project that has investors who are not also material creative participants in the work, unless you’ve signed an addendum to our grant agreement. Please contact Fractured Atlas if you intend to seek equity investments or a distribution agreement. Hiring a professional fundraiser who gets paid on a commission/percentage basis to raise charitable donations -‐‑ As a matter of policy, we currently don’t recommend working with professional fundraisers who get paid on a commission/percentage basis. Percentage-‐‑based compensation can produce reward without merit and among other things, can encourage abuses.
Processing or accepting earned revenue including advertising, ticket sales, workshop fees and merchandise sales through your fund. Our fiscal sponsorship program cannot accept earned revenue from our projects. It is your responsibility to manage any income from ticket sales, commissions, or other non-‐‑charitable sources independently of your sponsored fund.
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A note on advertising vs. corporate sponsorship: Advertising is not the same thing as corporate sponsorship. For example, acknowledgments, such as a simple “Thanks to our sponsors!” and a logo placement are considered sponsorship. Qualitative or comparative descriptions of the sponsor’s goods or services (basically, encouraging someone to buy the product or service, such as “Go to Sponsor, the best in the business!”) is considered advertising. Advertising income is generally taxable, even when it is received by a 501(c)(3) charity. We cannot accept payments for advertising; you need to handle that yourself outside of your sponsored fund. Corporate sponsorship payments are generally tax deductible and the income is tax exempt when received by a 501(c)(3) organization. We can accept contributions that represent corporate sponsorship for the purposes of your project. Here’s a link to a blog post with more details on this: http://bit.ly/u3ahjy
Registering or signing up for anything that requires Fractured Atlas’s name. This includes bank accounts and charity websites (Bank accounts, Justgive.com, Facebook Causes, PayPal, etc.). We provide each project with a unique online donation page and we are unable to accept donations made for the purposes of your project from any other online donation processing services. Your bank account is your own responsibility and should not have Fractured Atlas’s name associated with it. Let us know if you have questions about this.
Conducting a raffle through your fiscal sponsorship fund. Raffles are governed and regulated by each State. Due to these regulations, Fractured Atlas is not able to accept money raised through a raffle or assist projects in conducting a raffle.
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Additional Resources
Artful.ly Artful.ly is web-‐‑based business software, provided by Fractured Atlas and built especially for individual artists & small arts organizations. By connecting your fiscal sponsorship to an Artful.ly account, you can: • Collect donations on your own website • Sell tickets and collect donations at the same time • Track all your donors and patrons in one central place • Grow your base of support by taking control of your data To sync your Fractured Atlas membership to an Artful.ly account, sign up at www.artful.ly, then follow the instructions to "ʺconnect now"ʺ.
Fractured Atlas Insurance Program
Members of Fractured Atlas can purchase liability, property or casualty insurance to cover their arts-‐‑related events, business activities, and/or film productions. Our staff guides you through the process and helps obtain low-‐‑cost insurance tailored to your specific needs. You can find all the information regarding this program on our website at http://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/insurance/. SpaceFinder Rehearsals, performances, auditions, screenings... they all require space. Our SpaceFinder websites save you time and money by making it easier to find the right space for your project. Search for space by location, rate, size, up-‐‑to-‐‑date availability and more. TheNextWeb has dubbed our free resource "ʺThe OpenTable for Artists"ʺ. Fractured Atlas has expanded SpaceFinder to serve fourteen cultural hubs across North America, including New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Atlanta, Austin, Minneapolis, Detroit, Boston, and Toronto. Please visit SpaceFinder.org for details.
Nonprofit Rates
Fractured Atlas can always write a letter that requests a nonprofit rate or discount (if one exists) on behalf of our sponsored projects. To get a letter, please send an email to [email protected] that includes your project name and the vendor’s company name, address and contact person. We will email you a document that you may deliver to the vendor personally when requesting a nonprofit discount.
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Accounting and Legal Resources If you need help from an accountant or lawyer, please visit the “My Fiscal Sponsorship” section of the website and click the “Expert Help” icon to find help in your area.
New York Area Resources
Materials for the Arts
Sponsored groups should visit the Materials for the Arts website (www.mfta.org) to review the program guidelines and submit an online application. After the application has been submitted, please email [email protected] and request a confirmation letter. Our staff will submit a letter to Materials for the Arts confirming your sponsorship and alert you via email once it has been sent. At that point, you may contact MFTA and make an appointment to visit their warehouse.
TDF Costume Collection
To access the TDF Costume Collection, Fractured Atlas must submit a Letter of Agreement in your behalf. You should visit their website (www.tdf.org) to review their rental policies and procedures. To help us complete the form, please email [email protected] the following information:
Sponsored Project'ʹs Name: Name of production: Size of house: (if film, please put film) Authorized Designer or Contact Person with phone number: (up to three allowed) Performance Dates including the 1st preview date, opening and closing dates: Return Dates: (CC policy states they are due 10 days after the final performance)
We will then send you the credit card authorization form to complete and return to us so we can provide this along with a copy of the Letter of Agreement to the Costume Collection to have on file in case of cleaning, repair or late fees being incurred.
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Fundraising Help for Fiscally Sponsored Projects
Planning for Fundraising
One free one-‐‑hour consultation per year by phone
Are you ready to start fundraising?
Before you start sending off grant applications and ask-‐‑letters it is important to ask yourself if you’ve done the necessary groundwork for your fundraising efforts. Coming up with answers to these simple questions will help you target your efforts and make your organization more appealing to potential donors:
• Do you have a fundraising plan? Do you have a budget?
• Who do you think are likely contributors to your projects? What is the makeup of your current base of contributors?
• Do you have the human power and time needed to develop a well-‐‑researched and supported fund raising strategy?
• Do you have the necessary tools for tracking donors, managing money, and acknowledging contributions? Do you know what this would entail (i.e., do you have a plan) even if you do not have it in place yet?
• Do you have a written mission and have you developed solicitation material?
It’s time to let a long-‐‑held secret out of the bag: There is no such thing as a magic fundraising wand you can wave to find that one foundation, corporation, or individual who will cover your project’s needs without requiring more effort. The only fundraising magic you can do comes in the form of plain hard work. To be effective at achieving your mission in a sustainable fashion, your project needs diverse sources of income. That means laying the groundwork and doing the preparation necessary to raise the funds you need.
Fractured Atlas staff will work with your project one-‐‑on-‐‑one to help you clearly define the kind of funding you’ll need to accomplish your mission. We will also help you establish short and long term goals for all of your income categories.
Please contact our staff to schedule this one-‐‑hour phone meeting. We'ʹre sorry we can'ʹt accommodate in person meetings!
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Grant Research
(Contact us for a free list of grants, awards, foundations, fellowships, etc.)
There are, quite literally, thousands of grants available to individual artists and arts organizations yet only a few artists every year even apply for them. The sad truth of the matter is, most artists don’t know how or where to find information about all the grants that are out there. Fractured Atlas is here to help.
With this service, Fractured Atlas will send you a free list of grants that are available for your artistic discipline in your geographic location. The grant research list may include some of the following information (when available): Funder name, location, discipline focus.
Fractured Atlas will also send you a packet of information guiding you through the list of prospective grants. This packet will include resources for you to use while researching the funder, including a grant prospecting worksheet and a checklist of materials, as well as instructions for how to use these resources. Please note that a Fractured Atlas staff person might request these completed materials when performing a grant review.
Fractured Atlas is not giving blanket approval for you to apply for all of the grants on the list. You will still be expected to conduct thorough research about the grant opportunities. You will also need to have your application materials reviewed and approved by Fractured Atlas before submitting them to the funder.
If you’re interested in this service, please contact us at [email protected] to request your list of researched grants.