It’s a near-complete reference library devoted to fiscal sponsorship. Well, it doesn’t have everything, but the “Fiscal Sponsorship: 6 Ways To Do It Right” third edition eBook has benefits the print version can’t match.
The paperback is like the award-winning movie everyone sees in the theater; the digital version has outtakes for the buff who can’t get enough. Or, for most of us, when we’d like to know a bit more to explain a challenging concept, the backstory is right there in almost every linked footnote.
The eBook is available only from publisher Study Center’s site, fiscalsponsordirectory.org. A single eBook order, $37, allows a purchaser to use it on up to three devices, and there’s a discount for orders of five eBooks, each useable on up to three devices.
The introduction’s very first footnote directs readers to the 1989 paper by John Edie, general counsel for the Council on Foundations, on “Use of Fiscal Agents: A Trap for the Unwary,” essential reading to understand how this improper terminology became so ingrained that it persists even today.
In the section that explains Model A, footnote 3 links to the charitable solicitation requirements imposed by state governments. Footnote 7 provides timely information — the Internal Revenue Service’s advice to respond to a crisis by using existing charities rather than forming new ones.
This footnote feature, unique to the digital version of the third edition, clears a path to understanding complex concepts, providing the basis of all major premises on the spot, or offering examples that otherwise would slow the running text but add to the reader’s understanding.
It’s a researcher’s dream: Many of the 110 footnotes link to material authors Gregory Colvin and Stephanie Petit cite to clarify the facts, regulations, rulings and opinions that have made this work the bible of the field since the first edition, published in 1993.
“In the Model C section, under the topic Discretion and Control, a sidebar link takes you to a treasure trove of history,” says author Colvin. “The American Jewish Archives shows how, during the 1960s, United Jewish Appeal attorneys negotiated with the IRS to enable taxpayers to make deductible donations to a U.S. charity that transmitted funds to organizations in Israel to build up its public education system.”
The Postscript brims with useful source materials. Footnote 4 links to the National Network of Fiscal Sponsors’ guidelines for Models A and C best practices. And footnote 15, after a brief NNFS history, links to a similar but larger grouping, the influential National Network of Public Health Institutes.
The eBook is available only from publisher Study Center’s site, fiscalsponsordirectory.org. A single eBook order, $37, allows a purchaser to use it on up to three devices, and there’s a discount for orders of five eBooks, each useable on up to three devices.
Geoff Link is executive director of the San Francisco Study Center. Greg Colvin contributed to this post.