Providing a flexible fiscal home to enable collaboration, navigate complexity, and advance democratic, community, and economic resilience

Traditional nonprofit structures often do not fit network-based, time-bound, and collaboratively governed initiatives. Our fiscal sponsorship model provides a flexible, trusted home that enables coordination, shared accountability, and long-term impact without forcing initiatives into rigid organizational forms.

Root Change focuses on initiatives working to strengthen democratic, community, and economic resilience, including but not limited to:

• Bridge-building across ideological, racial, and geographic divides
• Depolarization and civic repair efforts
• Promoting democratic or collective values and culture
• Economic inclusion, social entrepreneurship, and community planning
• Equity and social justice work

We support both U.S.-based and global initiatives, with particular strength in early-stage, networked, and collaborative efforts in civic trust, collective action, rapid experimentation, and equity-centered work.

These initiatives are often one or more of the following:

• Time-bound and adaptive, operating over defined periods and evolving as strategies change
• In the start-up phase, figuring out what works and what doesn't
• Network-based and collaboratively governed, involving multiple organizations or leaders rather than a single grantee
• Distributed by design, supporting coordination and joint action across partners instead of centralized staffing
• Innovative models that generate both social value and financial returns

While these initiatives may operate at significant scale, their structure does not always align well with standard nonprofit models optimized for single organizations and centralized authority.

Core Operational Support

Our future-facing sponsorship model offers right-sized, equity-minded operational support, including:

• Financial management and reporting
• Grants and donor administration
• Domestic and international grantmaking
• Learning, reflection, and adaptive planning support
• Contracting and vendor management
• U.S. and global HR support
• Customized services aligned with community-defined needs

Our aim is to keep systems light, transparent, and proportionate, especially for grassroots, peer-led, and bridge-building work.

Optional Additional Services

In addition to fiscal sponsorship and collective capacity strengthening support, sponsored initiatives may also access additional services offered by Root Change, subject to availability and separate agreement.

These services are not required and are offered at reduced or negotiated rates for sponsored initiatives, reflecting shared infrastructure and mission alignment.

Available services include:

• Social tech and data tools, including access to Root Change’s tailored AI engines for learning, documentation, sensemaking, and coordination
• Network analysis and visualization tools, including access to Root Change’s network mapping platform and related tools
• Learning, evaluation, and strategy support grounded in democracy resilience, civic trust, and collaborative action

These services allow initiatives to deepen learning, coordination, and impact without needing to procure or build specialized systems independently.

Our support goes beyond compliance. Root Change brings experience as a long-term learning and support partner. Our approach combines operational stewardship with strategic accompaniment and learning partnership, helping initiatives launch, adapt, and endure amid polarization, distrust, inequity and rapid change. Rather than pushing promising work into rigid organizational forms too early, we create flexible, protective containers that allow ideas to mature, relationships to deepen, and leadership to grow while maintaining accountability, transparency, and shared purpose.

We support both individual organizations and multi-stakeholder collaboratives, networks, and coalitions. Whether working with a single emerging initiative or a diverse group of partners pursuing a shared goal, we help strengthen the relationships, structures, and learning processes needed to coordinate action, navigate complexity, and achieve lasting impact.

Our approach draws on Build–Win–Sustain principles, supporting initiatives to:

• Build trust, shared purpose, leadership, and relationships that strengthen community, economic, and democratic resilience
• Achieve meaningful progress on shared goals, demonstrating the value of collaboration and collective action while addressing complex social, economic, and civic challenges
• Sustain impact through structured learning, adaptation, capacity strengthening, and leadership development that enables initiatives to evolve and endure over time

Our overall fee is typically lower than that of many leading fiscal sponsors. While many fiscal sponsorship models focus primarily on compliance and administration, Root Change also invests in the learning, relationships, and collaborative infrastructure that help initiatives adapt, grow, and achieve greater impact. By reinvesting a portion of our fee revenue into shared capacity, we strengthen not only individual initiatives but also the broader networks and ecosystems in which they operate.

Competitive Core Administrative Fee

The administrative fee covers the full scope of fiscal sponsorship responsibilities, including:

• Financial management and accounting
• Grant administration and reporting
• Contracting, payroll, and vendor payments
• Compliance with funder and regulatory requirements

The standard administrative fee applies to grant revenue supporting a sponsored initiative’s approved scope of work. Pass-through or regranted funds that involve limited administrative or coordination requirements are subject to a lower administrative fee, as agreed in advance.

The fee is assessed proportionally as funds are received, ensuring that administrative costs scale appropriately with actual grant activity. There are no hidden charges or bundled overhead.

Reinvesting in Shared Learning and Collective Capacity

Unlike many fiscal sponsorship models where all fee revenue is absorbed into organizational overhead, Root Change intentionally reinvests a portion of its fee revenue (2%) into shared learning, coordination, and collaboration across the sponsored portfolio.

This 2% reinvestment supports:

• Cross-initiative learning and peer exchange
• Network coordination and collaborative problem solving
• Rapid response and collective action during critical moments or emerging opportunities
• Pilot efforts, experimentation, shared tools, and convenings

By pooling resources across initiatives, we are able to provide infrastructure that would be difficult for any single project to build on its own. The 2% reinvestment fund is governed through a collaborative decision-making process involving both Root Change and sponsored initiatives, enabling resources to be mobilized quickly and strategically while remaining subject to Root Change's fiduciary oversight.

This model allows Root Change to function as both a fiscal sponsor and a long-term learning partner. Sponsored initiatives receive high-quality administrative and compliance support while also benefiting from investments that strengthen relationships, shared learning, and collective impact across the broader ecosystem.