NumFOCUS

The term "fiscal sponsorship" isn't very clear on its face, unfortunately. We hear a lot of confusion about what it means. 2/

At its heart, fiscal sponsorship allows a project to have standing as a legal entity to receive money. Donations are tax-deductible bc 3/

the project effectively benefits from NumFOCUS's 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. This is v impt (!) bc it helps attract funding to projects. 4/

For example, if a company wants to write a big check to support one of our projects, they are able to write that off their taxes. 5/

It's often a much more direct & simple way to get $ to projects than funding a single contributor or maintainer as an individual. 6/

If a company writes a check directly to a project lead, the lead will owe taxes on it + the company will also not get any tax benefit. 7/

Sending money to a project via a university frequently comes with an admin fee to the uni as high as 60%. That's over half the money! 8/

In contrast, NumFOCUS admin fee is only 10%. That $ covers the cost of handling all taxes, financials, and legal matters for the project. 9/