Fiscal Sponsor Organizations

  • 1.  Andrew's Email re: "Program Fees"

    Posted 06-20-2024 16:29

    I thought it might be helpful to open up a discussion here about the email that Andrew sent this morning about reframing the terms “program fees/service fees”.

    This is the list of suggestions he included:

    “If you're looking for some ideas for alternative terms to use in place of the word "fee," here are some we've collected from the community:

    • administrative charge

    • administrative cost

    • collective infrastructure support

    • cost share

    • fiscal sponsorship cost

    • shared cost

    • shared administrative contribution

    • shared administrative cost

    And the most common replacements for the word "services" seems to be "support" or "supports."

    I’m thinking about some variation on “core program support”, “core infrastructure support” “core infrastructure cost” “shared infrastructure cost” or the like. I’ve been using the term “core program support” for years in place of “overhead” and “indirect cost”.

    Any other suggestions?



  • 2.  RE: Andrew's Email re: "Program Fees"

    Posted 06-20-2024 16:37
    Shared infrastructure cost sounds interesting. It’s a reframing from admin cost to the full range of what support can be: all the things holding up a project to be successful whether model C, C+, A or any of the others.


  • 3.  RE: Andrew's Email re: "Program Fees"

    Posted 06-20-2024 16:42
    @Whitney Cook In general, I MUCH prefer “infrastructure” to “admin” or even “operations”.


  • 4.  RE: Andrew's Email re: "Program Fees"

    Posted 06-20-2024 17:11
    We call it “Administrative Allocation”. We are in the process of moving our operations over to Ribbon and campaigning hard to change the language in their platform from “fees” to something suggested here. They said we are the only fiscal sponsor asking for this. Going to be the thorn in their side haha


  • 5.  RE: Andrew's Email re: "Program Fees"

    Posted 06-20-2024 20:06
    Thanks @Amanda LaFleur - we need to hold vendors accountable too!


  • 6.  RE: Andrew's Email re: "Program Fees"

    Posted 06-20-2024 20:12
    I’m curious if any of you ask your fiscally sponsored organizations to change this. Our website and contract say ‘cost share’ but pretty much every project grant I sign has a line item in their budget for ‘fiscal sponsor fee’.


  • 7.  RE: Andrew's Email re: "Program Fees"

    Posted 06-24-2024 19:03
    @Lisa Dugdale I’m constantly telling projects that we don’t call it a fee, but a shared administrative cost, but it is a constant battle. I also have funders who call it a fee, so there is an all around need for education.


  • 8.  RE: Andrew's Email re: "Program Fees"

    Posted 06-27-2024 14:50
    @Lisa Dugdale We advise programs to list it under an admin line item. Echoing Lucy, it’s a constant reminder from us to our programs.