In addition to legal status, sponsors can provide payroll, employee benefits, office space, publicity, fundraising assistance, and training services, sparing projects the necessity of developing these resources and allowing them to focus on programmatic activities.
[1] Projects may seek fiscal sponsorship for various reasons: an anticipated short lifespan, improved access to funding, increased credibility, and low-cost financial and administrative services.
[1] Fiscal sponsorship arrangements, if not handled carefully, can be vulnerable to the criticism that they serve merely as conduits for the transmission of deductible donations to entities not qualified to receive them.
Non-profit institutions solely devoted to fiscal sponsorship have sprung up across the country, ranging from documentary film sponsors to public health research groups to separate corporations spun off by community foundations.
Organizations like Hack Club, Ribbon, University Impact, and the Givinga Foundation are going in a different direction and trying to leverage software to improve the fiscal sponsorship product.