Exploring Fiscal Sponsorship at Trailhead
Trailhead Institute was founded in 1993 to manage and distribute funds from the State of Colorado to local communities, marking the start of its long history with fiscal sponsorship in Colorado. More than three decades later, Trailhead continues to grow its impact as an equity-centered strategic partner through the Administrative Partnership Program (APP). APP supports partners by reducing barriers to information and financial resources, providing support to increase access to funding, and free up partners’ capacity to focus on their missions while preserving full autonomy over their work.
As the program continues to evolve, Trailhead’s director of projects and partnerships, Benjamin Robb, and APP senior project manager, Ida Nelson, share their insight on what makes these partnerships successful and offer tips for individuals, collaboratives, and non-profits considering fiscal sponsorship.
Beginning with Values
Fiscal sponsors provide administrative support through their expertise, infrastructure, and tax-exempt status. This partnership allows individuals, groups, and organizations to focus on community impact.
Since 1993, Trailhead’s APP program has grown to serve more than 50 projects and community-based organizations in the Rocky Mountain Region. To assess if a new partner is a fit, the program increasingly prioritizes values. “It doesn’t matter what you want to do if how you’re doing it isn’t going to work for the communities served,” shares Benjamin Robb.
By the time prospective partners meet with Ida Nelson, who shares a leading role in exploring new partnerships, applicants have already determined that Trailhead’s fiscal sponsorship services align with their project’s needs through an online pre-screening webinar. Nelson approaches these initial conversations with an open mind and hopes that partners come to the table with a lived perspective as members of the community they serve.
“We’re really looking for projects whose values and goals are defined by community, and it’s not just somebody saying, ‘Oh, we see this problem and we want to fix it,’” Nelson explains. “You can tell in those interviews who is connected and passionate, versus who is an outsider trying to fix a problem. It just comes out naturally in the conversation, and so it’s easy to assess.”
Helpful Reflections to Consider
- Who is the community we serve?
- What is our connection to this community?
- What are our community’s needs?
- How does the project plan to address these needs?
- What values and goals do our community hold?
The APP program does not require prospective partners to present a formal workplan for their project’s goals during the application process, as this can be a barrier for applicants who are already experiencing constraints on their administrative capacity. Nelson adds, however, that applicants should have a clear purpose and approach for addressing community needs.
These factors help Trailhead consider how applicants align to the current funder landscape in Colorado and nationally, especially for partners seeking new funding. Often, projects need time to ramp up funding or bring on their first funding source.
“Having brought on a lot of projects with very little or no money, we spend a lot of time strategizing, exploring opportunities, honing in grant language, and also, a lot of encouragement to keep going,” said Nelson.
Notably, Trailhead deviates from the traditional route most fiscal sponsorship programs take. APP does not require projects to already have funding before becoming a partner. This approach recognizes the importance of investing time, energy, and resources into start-ups to build their administrative capacity — before applying to grant funds that are traditionally granted to larger academically and professionally seasoned organizations who often lack connection to communities.
Anticipating Needs
Building administrative capacity looks different for each partner. To meet partners’ needs, the APP program offers three primary tracks for partners, using different models of fiscal sponsorship. These tracks – interdependence, independence, and single grant support – are designed to offer a range of supports. These supports vary to include:
| Interdependence | Independence | Single Grant Support |
|---|---|---|
| Working with individuals, organizations, or collectives without a legal entity who require fiscal sponsorship to obtain funding. | Supporting partners who are in the process or are interested in applying for their own 501(c)(3) status. | Supporting partners that may have an established LLC, non-profit, or individual seeking support for a single grant award. |
Robb emphasizes that it’s important for prospective partners to consider not only the general type of fiscal sponsorship they require, but also the anticipated needs of the project itself. This holistic understanding of the project helps the APP team determine their capacity needed to serve new partners well.
Put simply, Robb shares, “If partners have these needs and it’s a great project, but we can’t meet those needs, then we don’t want to bring them on and set them up for failure. That goes against what we want as a program and as an organization.
“We need to be positive stewards of the funds and the fiduciary responsibilities for our partners. If we fall short, it harms everyone. So, making sure that we can provide quality services, and that we are performing at the expectations that we have for ourselves, is really important. We want to make sure that our partners can rely and trust on that.”
Helpful Questions to Consider
- What is our mission?
- Who is on our advisory board?
- Why are we interested in fiscal sponsorship?
- What model of fiscal sponsorship does this work require?
- What are the anticipated needs of the project?
- Are we interested in applying for our own 501(c)(3) status? If so, what’s the timeline?
- Are we ready to meet with a funder?
- What support do we need to be ready to pursue funding?
Building Trust and Collaboration
Importantly, the decision to bring on a new partner is shared across the APP team. First, the team gets a a full picture of an applicant’s values, goals for their work in community, and the level of fiscal sponsorship support that their project requires. Then, the team discusses the application with the Operations and Finance arms of the program to determine what implications or opportunities may emerge from bringing on the project. This process can take time, which Nelson views as a natural part of partnership.
Trailhead views its work as a partnership rather than a transaction, which is why we call all our sponsored projects Administrative Partners. A diagram above illustrates this approach.
“It feels like collaboration can and should take time,” says Nelson. “The biggest thing I want to communicate is to please have patience with us. There are many times when I’ve wanted to rush a partner through the process because I really connected with them – they felt like such a great fit. They hit all the boxes for us. But, out of fairness to the other people that have also applied, we have to follow the equity considerations that we have in place so that we’re not just giving into our wants and our desires. We want to treat everybody fairly through this process and honor the boundaries and guides we’ve set for ourselves as we bring those partners through the pipeline.”
A Birds-Eye View of Trailhead’s APPlication Process
- Step 1: Watch the pre-screening webinar to assess if you’re ready for fiscal sponsorship. This 3-part video series lasts six minutes and provides a brief overview of fiscal sponsorship at Trailhead.
- Step 2: Follow the APPlication instructions shared in the webinar to schedule a meeting with one of Trailhead’s APP Operations liaisons. Interested partners should be prepared to answer questions from part one of the video series.
- Step 3: Meet with one of Trailhead’s APP Operations Liaisons.
- Step 4: If the interested partner and APP team determine the partnership is a good fit, Trailhead will extend an invitation to apply.
- Step 5: Submit an application via Google Form.
- Step 6: Once your application is received, Trailhead conducts an internal review with Operations and Finance teams to determine capacity for bringing on the new project. This process can take up to 6-weeks and may involve gathering more information to ensure the project’s success.
- Step 7: If the project is approved, onboarding begins!
By instilling open and honest communication with partners from the earliest stages and embedding shared decision-making into the growth of the program, Trailhead strives to ground the program in mutual partnerships where both partners and APP staff are set up to thrive.
In April, Trailhead welcomed Matt Plecha to the Finance team to support the program’s existing community of partners and enable bringing on new APP partners later in 2025.
To learn more about APP, explore our community of partners and read our latest interview with Roger Low, CEO of the Colorado Equitable Economic Mobility Initiative (CEEMI), where he describes CEEMI’s impact and the value of Trailhead’s administrative partnership in his own words.