Donor Terms & Conditions

Fiscal Sponsorship Allies, Inc. (“FSA”) is committed to donor rights, as well as to transparency and accountability. Donors may have questions about how the donations themselves or their information is used. This section, Donor Terms and Conditions (“Donor Terms”) should help clarify such questions. Any donor or potential donor agrees by submitting a donation to FSA, to these Donor Terms.

Throughout this section, “sponsees” means the entity that FSA is supporting as a fiscal sponsor and to which you are donating.

1. Charitable Program. FSA is a nonprofit corporation and 501(c)(3) public charity. Our charitable program is to provide fiscal sponsorship services to other entities operating charitable programming.
2. Restricted Donations. Donations given in support of a sponsee are considered donations to FSA. Those donations are restricted for FSA’s use in carrying out its charitable programming and specifically restricted for the specific sponsee. For example, if a donor gives for the benefit of Sponsee X, then we will honor the donor designation or restriction in our grantmaking and award those funds to Sponsee X as a grant, except as provided in Paragraph 4, below. Donors understand that it is their responsibility to ensure that donations through the FSA platform are in fact donations, and are not disguised fee-for-service payments, or other non-donation transfers of funds.
3. Donations are Final. Donations are generally final. Because we very quickly grant the donations back out to the sponsee, any donations received are final. Exceptions may include times where a donor may have errantly added too many zeros in making the donation, or if the donation was fraudulent. In such events, we work with the sponsee, the individual donor, and the credit card companies, for example, to ensure each donation is appropriately handled.
4. Disallowing Restrictions. Donations given in support of a particular sponsee will generally be restricted for our grants to that sponsee. However, there are times where our legal obligations or Generally Accepted Accounting Principles require that FSA not honor such restrictions. For example, if a sponsee is judicially dissolved, files bankruptcy, or loses its tax-exempt status, FSA may not be permitted to make the grant to that sponsee. In these rare cases, if a sponsee fails to receive ACH payments and also fails to negotiate (i.e., deposit or cash) the check(s) sent to it from FSA, or if the donations are otherwise undeliverable pursuant to FSA’s policies, then any restriction is deemed lifted and the funds become unrestricted funds of FSA for use in furtherance of its charitable mission and program.
5. Variance. FSA retains the unilateral right to spend the amounts donated to it specified for a sponsee so as to accomplish the charitable purposes of the sponsee as nearly as possible within FSA’s sole judgment, subject to any more specific donor-imposed restrictions, on the charitable use of such assets. In the event that the sponsee cannot spend any donation amount for its charitable purposes due to impossibility, impracticality, waste, or illegality in the sole judgment of the FSA, then the FSA has the right to spend the such funds on charitable programs and purposes that in the sole discretion of the FSA is deemed appropriate.
6. Timing. Generally, FSA grants donations specified for a sponsee each month on or around the 15^th of the month. It reserves the right to change this schedule as necessary.
7. Donor Information. Donor information is used in three ways. First, highly confidential donor information (i.e., credit card numbers and expiration dates) is never shared, nor is it accessible by our personnel or by any sponsee personnel. Second, donor contact information (names, addresses and email addresses) is collected and used by us and shared with sponsees. Both sponsees and FSA use this donor contact information in subsequent communications with the donors. Donors may opt out at any time. Third, sponsees and FSA use donation information (donation amount, date, time, last four of credit card numbers, associated confirmation numbers, and similar) in processing donations and in processing subsequent grants to sponsees. This information is treated confidentially and only utilized insofar as is necessary for accounting, donation processing and similar purposes.
8. Gross Contributions. FSA does retain a Processing Fee, generally 2.89% of the donations. For accounting purposes and hereafter the donation is considered 100% received by the Sponsee and then the Processing Fee is “paid” to FSA by the Sponsee as per the above.
9. Gifts to Donors. FSA does not provide goods or services to donors in return for their donations.

State-Specific Disclosures