Mission.Earth is a home for charitable projects across the broad spectrum of public good, agnostic of size and scope. As such, we take special precaution to remain accessible to anyone who wants to give it a go. We enable charitable work by offering our 501(c)(3) tax status, and then we get out of the way.
In practice, that looks like:
- A cost-sharing structure that mimics a progressive tax, thereby spreading the burden of administration costs equitably among fiscally-sponsored projects of varying size and faculty.
- An intentional lack of overhead infrastructure and flat management to keep costs as low as possible.
- Prolific use of technology to enable widespread participation and build scalable systems that support compliance.
- Growing and shrinking based on the needs of our fiscally-sponsored projects.
I argue that Mission.Earth is functionally a cooperative venture. The members of our cooperative (fiscally-sponsored projects) collectively fund the maintenance of the nonprofit designation on which we all rely. This requires a manager (that’s me) to translate those funds into the continued existence of that nonprofit designation by performing the fiscal and legal requirements to keep the entity intact. I build systems, tools and resources that allow projects to self-serve and depend on projects to do so, thereby keeping my time commitment and everyone’s overhead costs, low.
We are allergic to making our projects pay for something they won’t use; by the same token, we’ll partner with you to expand your impact at a manageable cost. The cooperative only exists to support its members, and so my efforts are guided exactly by your needs.
This cooperative spirit separates us from our colleagues in the fiscal sponsorship industry. We don’t seek to be a robust nonprofit organization that provides bookkeeping and back office services. Instead, our goal is to be a silent partner to our sponsored projects. That is reflected in our costsharing rates, our diffuse infrastructure, and our flexibility.
Do you vibe with the cooperative philosophy? Could you see your charitable work as a part of our community?