NEO Philanthropy, founded in 1983 and based in New York, is a national leader in philanthropic intermediary services for social justice. One of its most equity-relevant practices is fiscal sponsorship: acting as the registered legal entity on behalf of organisations and campaigns that do not hold their own nonprofit status, enabling them to receive and deploy philanthropic resources they would otherwise be unable to access.
For many of the most grassroots and community-proximate organisations, the requirement to be a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit to access foundation funding represents a structural exclusion, not a reflection of organisational capacity or impact. NEO’s fiscal sponsorship model addresses this directly. It accepts donations and grants, manages HR and legal compliance, processes payroll and tax reporting, and provides financial infrastructure, allowing movement-building groups to focus on their work.
Since 2003, NEO’s collaborative grantmaking funds have reached community-based organisations across nearly all US states. Its flagship funds, including the Four Freedoms Fund and the State Infrastructure Fund, pool resources from multiple donors to reach groups working on voting rights, civic engagement, and social justice. NEO explicitly frames its role as bridging the gap between funders and community organisations doing movement work.
The model has practical implications for grantmakers who do not operate fiscal sponsorship themselves: it raises the question of whether requiring applicants to hold a particular legal status is a necessary safeguard or a barrier that systematically advantages established organisations over emerging ones.
What practitioners can take from this
NEO Philanthropy’s fiscal sponsorship model is a working demonstration that structural access to funding can be engineered. For grantmakers thinking about who their eligibility criteria exclude and why, it offers both a challenge and a model.