Chapter 2:The ABCs of Grants 21 Third Sector New England 18 Tremont Street, Suite 700 Boston, MA 02108 tsne.org (and click on "Programs & Services") This service organization is involved with sponsorship for community coalitions and regional or national projects that share their mission of creating healthy, sustainable communities and active democracy. Hundreds of organizations offer fiscal sponsorship, and you'll probably find there's more than one in your community. When considering an organization to sponsor you, be sure to check them out. Talk to someone whom they have sponsored, and take a look at their audited financial statements for the last three years to see if they're financially stable. Ask an accountant to review the financial statements with you because these are difficult to understand if you're not used to reading them. It doesn't happen often, but nonprofits have been known to go out of business having spent not only all of their funds but also those of the groups they were sponsoring. For more information, you might want to read Fiscal Sponsorship: 6 Ways to Do It Right, now in its second edition, by Gregory L. Colvin (Study Center Press, 2006) or con sult the guide to fiscal sponsorship on the Foundation Center's website. What Can You Raise Money For? No matter what you want to raise money for, there's probably a funder out there interested in making a grant for it. When you begin your research into your potential funders, you'll need to keep in mind the broad categories funders use to describe the kind of support they will give. WORDS TO THE WISE Never put all your eggs in one basket. Apply to several funders at the same time for your project. What, you ask, will happen if they all come through? You should be so lucky to have such a problem, but if you do, you can always expand the scope of the project or ask one of the funders to allow you to use their grant to extend the project for a longer period of time.