Fiscal sponsorship

Account structure is the organization's decision on how to structure different donation flows in Fundraise Up. The legal arrangement between sponsor and project may guide that decision but doesn't determine it.

Two approaches work for fiscal sponsorship and internal programs alike: subaccounts, or a single account with campaigns.

A subaccount is an independent workspace inside your main account. Each subaccount has its own campaign list, supporter data, and settings, and can connect its own Stripe account. From the parent account, you can see activity across all subaccounts. Users added inside a subaccount only see that subaccount.

This structure suits fiscal sponsors who manage several projects — particularly when:

• Each project has its own team that needs Dashboard access.
• Each project needs its own payment connection or receipt configuration.
• You want to track and report on each project independently.

If you manage a small number of projects — or don't need per-project user access — you can run each project as a separate campaign inside one account. Use designations to attribute donations to specific funds or programs within each campaign.

This approach shares one payment connection, one receipt template, and one supporter list across all projects. Emails can be customized per campaign. It is simpler to set up but offers less separation between projects.

In a fiscal sponsorship arrangement, supporter-facing designation language should make clear that designations are supporter preferences subject to the sponsor's discretion, not legally binding restrictions to a sponsored third-party recipient. Otherwise, a donation earmarked to a specific external project can put tax-deductibility at risk.

The fiscal sponsor's Stripe or PayPal account — not the sponsored project's — must be connected to Fundraise Up. This is because donations must flow through a 501(c)(3).

One payment connection serves all campaigns. Confirm that the connected account in Settings > Payment methods is held by the fiscal sponsor — connect it if not. Learn more →

You can have all subaccounts share the parent's payment connection, or each subaccount can connect its own. The trade-off is the statement descriptor — the name that appears on supporters' bank statements. It's set once per Stripe account, in the Stripe dashboard under Business details, so a shared connection means a shared descriptor across all projects, and a separate connection per subaccount means each project gets its own.

If projects have distinct public identities, supporters may not recognize a shared descriptor and may dispute the charge. In that case, a separate Stripe account per subaccount is the safer choice.

Share the parent's connection

All subaccounts run transactions through the parent's Stripe. Simpler to set up; single descriptor across all projects.

At subaccount creation (Settings > Subaccounts > Create subaccount), check Use parent's payment methods and receipt.

Each subaccount has its own payment connection and its own statement descriptor. More setup; safer if projects have distinct public identities.

At subaccount creation (Settings > Subaccounts > Create subaccount), leave Use parent's payment methods and receipt unchecked. Then log into the subaccount, go to Settings > Payment methods, and connect a Stripe account.

Tax receipts in Fundraise Up reflect the legal identity set in each account's settings. The receipt must clearly identify the fiscal sponsor as the legal recipient — not the sponsored project. Supporters need to see the fiscal sponsor's name on their receipt to claim the deduction correctly. Their donation is a gift to the fiscal sponsor, not to the project directly.

Go to Settings > Account to configure the following fields. Each appears on the PDF receipt.

• Organization email — shown in the receipt header alongside the legal name and address.
• Legal name — appears in the receipt header. To identify the project alongside the sponsor, a common format is Fiscal Sponsor Name dba Project Name, where dba stands for "doing business as." This format requires registering the assumed name with the state where the sponsor is incorporated — otherwise use Project Name, a program of Fiscal Sponsor Name. For fiscal sponsorship with a separate project entity, confirm the correct presentation with legal counsel.
• Tax ID — use the fiscal sponsor's EIN (Employer Identification Number), not the project's.
• Legal address — the fiscal sponsor's registered address.

A subaccount's receipt settings depend on how it was created. If Use parent's payment methods and receipt was left unchecked, the subaccount has its own legal name, Tax ID, and address on its receipts. If it was checked, it inherits the parent's settings instead.

Go to Settings > Receipt to configure the text in the receipt footer. Update Receipt note for standard donations with your tax disclosure language. If your campaigns offer Benefits, update Receipt note for donations with benefits separately — this text appears on receipts where a benefit was selected.

For an internal program, a standard note reads:

This donation was made to Fiscal Sponsor Name, a 501(c)(3) organization (EIN: XX-XXXXXXX), for the support of Project Name, a program of Fiscal Sponsor Name. No goods or services were provided in exchange for this contribution. The full amount is tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

For fiscal sponsorship with a separate project entity, the receipt note must also reflect the grant relationship and the sponsor's discretion and control over the funds. Consult the National Network of Fiscal Sponsors (fiscalsponsors.org) for model-specific language and verify the final text with legal counsel.

Receipt settings follow the same logic as payment setup. If a subaccount has its own Stripe account, it can configure receipts independently. If it inherits the parent's payment methods, it also inherits the parent's receipt settings and cannot change them at the subaccount level.

In Settings > Account, check the Tax exemption verification section and upload the fiscal sponsor's proof of tax-exempt status. Use the fiscal sponsor's documentation — not the project's.

The right team setup depends on the account structure you chose.

Team access in a single account is account-wide, not per-project. Every team member you invite can see all campaigns, all supporters, and all donations across all projects. There's no built-in way to limit a team member to a single project in this structure.

Go to Settings > Team to invite users and assign roles.

If projects need their own teams with access limited to their own data, use subaccounts instead — see Step 1.

To give a sponsored project's team access to their subaccount — and only their subaccount — add users from within that subaccount, not from the parent.

1. Log into the subaccount.
2. Go to Settings > Team.
3. Invite users and assign roles. For most project teams, Campaign Administrator is the appropriate role — it gives access to campaigns, donations, supporters, and Insights, without access to account-level settings or payment configuration.

Users added this way can only access the subaccount they were added to. Organization Administrators added at the parent account level can access all subaccounts automatically.

Both account structures give you ways to view and export donation data per project. The method differs based on which structure you used.

From the parent account, go to Insights and filter by subaccount to view donation data for a specific project. Each subaccount also has its own Insights view when you log into it directly.

Exports support filtering by account — pull data for one subaccount or combine data across all of them from the parent account.

If you run projects as campaigns rather than subaccounts, filter by campaign in Insights and exports to see per-project data. When designations are used, each designation creates its own donation record, which you can view and export per designation.

When a sponsored project receives its own tax-exempt status, it may want to leave the fiscal sponsor's account and operate independently.

Before any platform migration, fiscal sponsorship needs to be terminated. Document the termination of fiscal sponsorship and submit to Fundraise Up the fiscal sponsor's authorization to complete migration to the new 501(c)(3).

There are two technical paths, based on how the project was set up from the start.

If the project raised funds under the fiscal sponsor's Stripe account, a migration is required:

1. Contact support@fundraiseup.com to create a new Fundraise Up account for the project.
2. Connect the project's own Stripe or PayPal account.
3. Update all legal details in Settings > Account: legal name, Tax ID, address, and organization email.
4. Migrate existing recurring plans from the fiscal sponsor's account to the new account. Contact migrations@fundraiseup.com to initiate this.

If you know in advance that a project will eventually get its own 501(c)(3), you can set it up from the start in a way that avoids recurring plan migration.

This path means the project is not based on fiscal sponsorship and cannot offer tax-deductible receipts until it receives its own status. Most early-stage projects raise less when donations aren't tax-deductible. That drop in donations usually hurts more than a future migration would.

Consider this path only if the project doesn't depend on tax-deductibility to fundraise. Before you take this path, consult with legal counsel. Once legal counsel confirms the structure is sound, proceed:

1. At subaccount creation, leave Use parent's payment methods and receipt unchecked and connect the project's own Stripe account.
2. In Settings > Account, leave the tax-exempt status checkbox unchecked.
3. In Settings > Receipt, add a note that the organization's 501(c)(3) application is pending and that donations are not currently tax-deductible.

When the project receives its status:

1. Check the tax-exempt status checkbox and upload the approval documentation.
2. Update the legal name, Tax ID, and address in Settings > Account to reflect the project's own registration.
3. Update the receipt note with the correct tax disclosure language.

No recurring plan migration is needed because the project's Stripe account was its own from the start.

Fundraise Up relies on Stripe and PayPal for payment processing. If a sponsored project is based in a country where Stripe is not available, the project can work with a fiscal sponsor in a Stripe-supported country — typically the United States.

The US-based fiscal sponsor connects their Stripe account to Fundraise Up and collects donations on the project's behalf. Fundraise Up handles donation collection for the US-based fiscal sponsor. The transfer of funds by the US-based fiscal sponsor to the international project happens outside the platform, and may carry legal and compliance obligations for the US-based fiscal sponsor.

Before any international fiscal sponsorship arrangement, it is recommended that the fiscal sponsor:

• Screen the international project against OFAC sanctions lists.
• Conduct due diligence to confirm the project is engaged in legitimate charitable activity.
• Confirm that fund transfers to the project's country are legally permissible, including pursuant to applicable anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing laws.

A US 501(c)(3) that transfers funds internationally without proper due diligence can face federal regulatory consequences. Work through compliance first — the administrative fee arrangement and transfer schedule are secondary.