“How we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale.” - adrienne maree brown.
Ultimately, social justice work is all about relationship. Relationship to systems. Relationship to our people. Relationship to our values. Relationship to ourselves.
As our commitments to ourselves, our values, and our people grow and sharpen, so do our expectations for those we build community with, partner with, and accept support from. It becomes harder to find folks who share our values and possess the skills we need to sustain ourselves and our movements. So, maybe we take on a little more than we can hold. We stretch ourselves a little too far in areas that are new to us. We throw ourselves into our programs, and deprioritize our operational needs. The Nonprofit Finance Fund acknowledges philanthropy’s contribution here - only 7% of organizations reported that funders covered their full costs, with 57% naming that raising funding to cover their full costs was a top challenge.
For grassroots organizers, fiscal sponsorship is often where we turn when we need dependable nonprofit infrastructure while we focus on our core work. It’s the operational home to so many of our social justice movements, with data from a recent field scan pointing to over 12,000 projects utilizing fiscal sponsorship across the country. As movement intermediaries, fiscal sponsors play a critical role in holding the vision of movement leaders, expanding the capacity of organizers, making funding more accessible, and maintaining the financial and legal rigor required to keep organizers safe. This is arguably one of the most delicate dances that exists in the nonprofit world, and as a result, there are countless strategies for holding this balance - with sponsors ranging from rigid transactional authoritarians to overextended movement accomplices.
Having both led a sponsored program and operated as a fiscal sponsor, I understand that we must equally center legal & financial expertise AND trust & interdependence. Alight Alchemy was born out of a need to better sustain our movements. Fortifying our fiscal sponsors is a key part of that work.
Fiscal sponsorship can be more than a contractual relationship to advance charitable activities. My vision for fiscal sponsorship is a system of care for and accountability to ourselves and our movements. It's a well-resourced network that can hold our biggest visions responsibly, navigate us through uncertainty, build our capacity and rigor, dream alongside us, and ensure we can do the work for the long haul.
Over the years, critical spaces like the Fiscal Sponsor Hub have provided weekly technical assistance to sponsors, while Social Impact Commons has built a strong base of shared practice, advocacy, direct services, and a compelling vision rooted in intentional community and collective stewardship.
Through Alight Alchemy, I hope to add to the field overall by supporting fiscal sponsors to deepen their practices of care, interdependence, accountability, and collaboration with their projects. In practice, my offerings range from implementing capacity assessments to better understand the limitations and opportunities within your existing structure, developing feedback and accountability processes, moving people through conflict, and leading team conversations to better articulate your unique visions for this work and sustain the relationships we need to build community power.
Over 6 months to a year, Alight Alchemy would work with your organization to develop and implement practices and tools to establish a system of mutual care and accountability. That looks like:
Developing an assessment tool around the collective care and accountability practices across your organization
Facilitating workshops and practice spaces around self-accountability, conflict transformation, understanding and communicating risk appetite, and assessing capacity and sustainability
Reviewing and updating your program manual and project recruitment, onboarding, and offboarding process to align with your organization’s vision of collective care and accountability
If you’re interested in working together, please complete the consulting request form below!
Presentation from the National Network of Fiscal Sponsors Conference on Thursday November 30, 2023.