Fiscal sponsorship is one of the most practical tools available to the bioregional movement. It lets a project receive tax-deductible donations, apply for grants, employ staff, hold insurance, and operate under nonprofit law without first having to incorporate its own 501(c)(3). For early-stage bioregional initiatives, that difference is often the difference between getting started this year and waiting three more.
The Department of Bioregion runs a fiscal sponsorship program, internally called DOBProjects, as part of our Roots program area. This page explains what fiscal sponsorship is, why we offer it, the two models we work in, who we sponsor, and how the relationship is structured. The application itself lives on a separate page; this is the primer.
What fiscal sponsorship actually is
Fiscal sponsorship is a formal arrangement in which a 501(c)(3) nonprofit extends its legal and tax-exempt status to a project or group that aligns with its charitable mission. This allows individuals or unincorporated groups to receive tax-deductible donations, apply for grants, and access nonprofit infrastructure without forming their own nonprofit organization.
The American Bar Association puts it more formally: fiscal sponsorship is a contractual relationship that allows a person or organization that is not tax-exempt to advance charitable activities with the benefit of the tax-exempt status of a sponsor organization. Established 501(c)(3) organizations also use fiscal sponsorship relationships to advance funding opportunities, to assist with back-office administration, and to take on larger programming projects without expanding staff.
It is a great way to support early-stage initiatives, pilot programs, or collaborative efforts that want to focus on impact while a sponsor handles the backend administration, compliance, and reporting. In many cases, fiscal sponsorship serves as an incubator and stepping stone, helping projects mature into independent nonprofits in the future. In other cases, it is the long-term home a project actually wants. Both are legitimate.
Why the Department of Bioregion offers it
We believe the people who live in a place are best suited to lead in caring for that place. We also recognize that anyone getting started or leaning into bioregional organizing needs support: resources, onboarding, context, history, legal and financial infrastructure. The Department of Bioregion works to bridge that gap by combining education, coordination, and infrastructure to lower barriers of access for anyone, whether they are mapping their watershed, organizing their neighbors, or launching a community project.
Fiscal sponsorship is the part of that work that lets a project move money. Without a 501(c)(3) backbone, a community group cannot accept most foundation grants, cannot offer donors a tax deduction, cannot easily run payroll, cannot hold liability insurance for events, and carries personal exposure if something goes wrong. Each one of those barriers slows the work or stops it entirely. Our fiscal sponsorship program removes them on day one.
The program lives inside our Roots program area, which provides Administrative Program Services (APS) for our internal operations and a Fiscal Sponsorship Program (FSP) for external projects. While APS supports our internal team and contractors, the FSP extends that same nonprofit structure outward, empowering aligned grassroots initiatives to operate under our 501(c)(3) umbrella from day one. Together they form the operational backbone of the Department of Bioregion: practical nonprofit management combined with the deeper values of bioregionalism and regenerative practice.
These relationships are grounded in a clear Memo of Understanding and built on consent and trust. Fiscal sponsorship is especially effective for groups just starting out, providing an immediate administrative and nonprofit backbone as they develop their own capacity.
Department of Bioregion, Bioregional Roots program description
The two models we offer
There are several recognized models of fiscal sponsorship in the field, codified most clearly by Gregory Colvin’s Fiscal Sponsorship: 6 Ways to Do It Right and used by established practitioners like Tides Center and Third Sector New England. The Department of Bioregion offers two of them: Model A and Model C. Each fits a different stage and different needs.
Model A: Comprehensive Fiscal Sponsorship
In Model A, your project becomes an official internal program of the Department of Bioregion. We handle all legal, financial, and administrative responsibilities, including accounting, tax reporting, insurance, and compliance. Funds are housed in our accounts, and we maintain ultimate oversight. The project operates under our EIN. Staff working on the project are employed by the Department of Bioregion, with payroll, benefits, and HR compliance handled by us.
Model A is the right fit for groups that want full administrative support, are just starting out, or are planning to spin off into their own 501(c)(3) in the future. It is also the model used by our Bioregional Branches: each Department of Bioregion branch operates as a Model A program of the parent organization while it builds local capacity.
Under Model A, the Department of Bioregion takes on full legal and financial responsibility for the project’s activities. The project leader retains day-to-day authority over programming and fundraising direction, but the legal entity is the Department.
Model C: Pre-Approved Grant Relationship
In Model C, the project is a separate legal entity that already has its own structure, often an LLC, an unincorporated association, an international organization, or a 501(c)(4). The Department of Bioregion receives donations and grants designated for the project and re-grants those funds to the project entity under a pre-approved grant relationship. The project uses its own EIN, manages its own staff, and handles its own day-to-day operations.
Model C is used by established organizations, international partners, and initiatives that need a funding conduit rather than a full administrative home. Each Model C grant agreement specifies how funds are used, what reports the project must provide, and how compliance is monitored. The project retains autonomy; the Department provides oversight to ensure the grant is used for the charitable purposes for which it was given.
Choosing between them
The simplest way to think about the choice:
- If your project is new, has no separate legal entity, and wants the Department to handle accounting, payroll, insurance, and compliance, Model A is likely the right fit.
- If your project is already an organization in some form, has its own structure, and needs the Department to act as a funding conduit for tax-deductible donations or specific grants, Model C is likely the right fit.
- If you are not sure, we will help you figure it out. Most applicants start with a conversation, not a form.
Who we sponsor
The Department of Bioregion sponsors individuals, groups, and initiatives that are helping to create a world of bioregions and thriving bioregional movements. We welcome applicants whose work is rooted in place and aligned with our vision: to regenerate local cultures, economies, and ecosystems through organizing, solidarity, and systems transformation, beginning with ourselves and our communities.
We support:
- Projects that raise awareness of bioregions, their unique identities, ecosystems, cultures, and communities, through education, learning, research, or storytelling
- Efforts that grow bioregional movements, strengthen local resilience, and cultivate shared identity and belonging rooted in place
- Initiatives that promote bioregionalism as a practical, place-based alternative to capitalism and the nation-state
- Work that seeks to protect and care for what is special in each place: land, waters, species, languages, cultural knowledge, and traditional ways of life
- Organizing that contributes to the long-term regeneration of bioregions through grassroots governance, stewardship, mutual aid, and ecological repair
- Collaborations and experiments that serve as models for other bioregions or help weave together global bioregional solidarity
- Projects that build or explore regenerative, non-extractive, and place-based economic models, including mutual aid, solidarity economies, cooperatives, local currencies, and land-based livelihoods
- Programs that center frontline communities in climate and ecological justice, including Indigenous peoples, Black and Brown communities, LGBTQ+ communities, and those disproportionately affected by extraction, exploitation, and ecological collapse
If your work contributes to these goals in a spirit of collaboration, equity, courage, and care for people and planet, you are welcome here.
What sponsored projects receive
Once approved by our Board of Directors, your project becomes part of the Department of Bioregion’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit umbrella. This comes with access to shared services and the legal benefits of operating as a recognized nonprofit, including:
- Tax-deductible donations and grant eligibility
- Use of our liability insurance policy for eligible activities and events
- Access to a dedicated bank account
- A mailing address
- Internal nonprofit resources and administrative tools
- End-of-year tax reporting
- Protection from personal liability
- Payroll services and the ability to pay contractors, including across international borders
- Support through our website, newsletter, and social media to help grow your visibility and engagement
- Mentorship, peer learning, and connection to a growing network of bioregional organizers
You retain full rights to your work and to funds raised, minus a modest administrative fee. The agreement can be ended by either party if it is no longer a good fit. You continue to handle your project’s day-to-day operations: website, outreach, events, programming. Our role is to help with backend administration, compliance, and reporting, so you can focus on the work.
The financial arrangement
All donations, grants, ticket sales, and other revenue that flows through the bank account are received by the Department of Bioregion and deposited into your project’s restricted fund. The Department takes a 10% administrative fee on all incoming revenue to support our shared programming and backend infrastructure, including insurance, grant reporting, payroll administration, financial oversight, and communications systems. This rate sits within the standard range for fiscal sponsors in the field, which typically runs 5 to 15 percent.
This number may change year to year as real costs are assessed, but we will always do our best to keep it low and make sure each team is receiving the most support we can provide. No fee is charged on starting assets or balances held prior to joining. If you bring existing funds into the relationship, they remain yours.
Donations can be made to your project through several channels: checks made out to the Department of Bioregion with the project name in the memo line, PayPal, Wise for international transfers, Stripe for debit and credit cards, direct bank transfer, the Department of Bioregion website, or a donation button on your project’s own website linked to our shared payment processor.
What we ask of sponsored projects
As part of our network, we ask that you:
- Uphold our values and refrain from illegal or unethical activity
- Maintain a positive project account balance
- Stay in regular contact and keep us informed of your activities
- Share budget and impact information, especially for annual reporting
- Publicly acknowledge your affiliation using language such as: “A 501(c)(3) program of the Department of Bioregion” on your website and marketing materials
These are lightweight asks. Reporting happens twice a year, in story-based form rather than as exhaustive paperwork. The Department exists to make this lighter, not heavier.
How fiscal sponsorship serves the bioregional movement
Bioregional organizing is, by definition, distributed. The work happens in watersheds, on coastlines, in mountain valleys, in cities and small towns. No single nonprofit can hold all of it, and no single nonprofit should try. What the movement needs is shared infrastructure that lets place-based teams stand up quickly, hold money responsibly, and connect to each other.
This is what fiscal sponsorship offers when it is done well. A sponsor like the Department of Bioregion serves as connective tissue: handling the parts of nonprofit life that do not need to be reinvented in every bioregion, so local teams can focus their energy on the parts that absolutely do need to be local. Mapping a watershed, building relationships across difference, organizing for stewardship, recovering languages and food traditions, designing regenerative economies; none of that scales by being centralized. The administrative backbone, on the other hand, scales beautifully when it is shared.
This is also why we are not the only sponsor in the space, and we do not need to be. Aligned organizations such as Ecotrust, Salmon Nation, Bioregional Learning Centre Devon, Really Regenerative CIC, Planet Drum Foundation, Reconnecting Northlands, ASHA, and Ma Earth each play their own role in resourcing place-based work. A healthy movement has many fiscal homes, not one. The Department of Bioregion’s contribution is a 501(c)(3) backbone tuned specifically to bioregional values and the needs of bioregional organizers, with the explicit goal of catalyzing more sponsors, more branches, and more capacity over time.
A growing number of people are recognizing that to secure the clean air, water, and food that we need to survive healthfully, we have to become guardians of the places where we live.
Lansing Scott, First Cascadia Bioregional Congress, 1986
Fiscal sponsorship is, in practical terms, one way to act on that recognition without first having to become an accountant.
What happens next
Most projects start with a conversation rather than a form. Before submitting an application, we recommend reaching out so we can introduce ourselves, hear about your project, and help you think through whether Model A or Model C is the better fit. The more familiar we are with your work, the faster the formal review goes.
From there the path is straightforward:
- Introductory meeting with Department of Bioregion staff to discuss your project and confirm fit.
- Submit the application, ideally after we have walked through it together.
- Board of Directors review. This can take up to three months, though projects we already know well move faster. We follow up within one week of receiving an application.
- Sign the community agreement (Model A) or grant agreement (Model C). This formalizes the relationship and onboards your project into our systems and reporting rhythms.
- Begin your work as an official program of the Department of Bioregion. You can receive donations, apply for grants, access shared infrastructure, and continue organizing in your bioregion with the full support of our network.
The application form, with the questions we ask and the supporting documents we request, lives at Apply for Fiscal Sponsorship. For questions before you apply, contact fsp@deptofbioregion.org or projects@deptofbioregion.org.