A simple, efficient structure

Fiscal sponsorship is a practical arrangement that allows teams like ours to be housed with an existing nonprofit in order to access essential back-office services — accounting, human resources, grants and contract management, and legal and compliance support, rather than building those functions for ourselves, which would be both costly and inefficient.

Alaska Venture Fund is fiscally sponsored by New Venture Fund (NVF), a 501(c)(3) public charity. In this relationship, NVF handles fiduciary oversight and administrative services, which helps us stay lean, compliant and able to direct more of our resources into work here in Alaska.

Fiscal sponsorship has existed since the 1950s and has grown rapidly across the nonprofit sector over the last two decades, with hundreds of fiscal sponsors now supporting thousands of charitable projects with a diverse range of missions. Groups choose fiscal sponsorship because it reduces overhead and allows more resources to reach communities.

Operating within a fiscal sponsor structure does not mean the sponsor sets our agenda or leads our programs, fundraising, or objectives — those are conducted by our Alaska team. We establish our own strategy, cultivate our own funder relationships, secure our own funding and determine our own priorities; NVF ensures our plans are charitable and comply with the law. We only work with funders and partners who respect the independence and the importance of Alaskan voices.