Grant Application Review Procedure

All grant applications submitted with Fractured Atlas as your fiscal sponsor are required to be reviewed and approved by our staff prior to submitting to the funder. This article walks through how to complete this approval process. 

Skip to Links: 

1. Fractured Atlas's Grant Review Requirement
2. Before Submitting a Grant for Review
3. How to Submit a Grant Application through Fractured Atlas's Grant Dashboard
4. What We Look For
   1. Eligibility and Application Accuracy
   2. Required Standard Text
   3. Admin Fee in the Budget
5. What Documentation We Provide
6. What happens if I submit to the funder without Fractured Atlas's approval?

✏️ Fractured Atlas's Grant Review Requirement

All grant proposals, sponsorship requests, and letters of inquiry (LOIs) must be reviewed and approved by a Fractured Atlas staff member prior to submission to the funder. If a grant application requires 501(c)(3) status or fiscal sponsorship, it will likely require Fractured Atlas' EIN, IRS Determination Letter, 990, etc. Only once we've signed off on your proposal will we be able to issue any materials required from Fractured Atlas by the funder. Projects are prohibited from using Fractured Atlas EIN or other materials without our permission. 

In order to give us time to review your materials and gather the information required of the fiscal sponsor, we ask for 10 business days to review all grant applications. We are pleased to offer Grant Review Rush Services if your needs require a faster response time.

📋Before Submitting a Grant for Review

1. Review our Required Grant Educational Resources.
2. Review the funder's eligibility guidelines carefully, confirm they allow for fiscal sponsorship, and reach out to the funder if you have any questions about your fit for the opportunity. Our team has the right to deny an application upon review, if your project is not eligible for an opportunity. It is better to know this before you put in work on the application itself!
3. Complete your grant application materials as thoroughly as possible. We must review as close to a final draft as we can prior to approval. 
4. If you have any questions about the opportunity or our review timeline, reach out to [e-mail]! 

💻 How to Submit a Grant Application through Fractured Atlas's Grant Dashboard

Once you've reviewed our Required Grant Educational Resources, checked eligibility, and prepared your materials, you can submit a grant for review via your Fiscal Sponsorship Dashboard.

To submit your LOI or grant application for review:

1. First, log into www.fracturedatlas.org and click Fiscal Sponsorship
2. Then, click "Grant Applications" under the Donations Section
3. Next, click "Apply for a Grant"

In the form, we ask that you provide the following: 

• Name of funder and the grant opportunity.
• Grant due date (If this is a rolling opportunity, please pick your ideal grant submission date keeping in mind that we ask for 10 business days to review your materials.)
• The amount you are requesting.
• Link to grant guidelines.
• For online applications, provide the link to the portal and your login credentials.
• List and upload all documents to be reviewed by Fractured Atlas (ie a grant narrative, budget, team biographies, etc.
• List all documents and information required from Fractured Atlas (ie Fractured Atlas’s IRS Determination Letter, 990, Audit, Bank Information, etc.)
• Processing Speed: If you need to take advantage of our rush services, please mark it at the bottom of the form and we will do our best to prioritize your request. 

We need to have this information on hand because, in many cases, we are the applicant of record and must be prepared to answer any questions if contacted by the funder about your proposal.

✅ What We Look For

Eligibility and Application Accuracy

We will do a broad overview of the application to ensure you are eligible for the opportunity, fiscal sponsorship is allowed, and that you have completed the application as thoroughly as possible. While we do not do a detailed content review, we will let you know if we see any ways you can strengthen your application. 

Required Standard Text 

We aim to make LOIs and grant application approvals as easy as possible by providing Required Standard Text to use in your LOIs and grant applications. You may include it in your cover letter or within the narrative wherever you think appropriate, but it needs to appear somewhere in your LOI or application. Here’s the text to use for Foundations, Corporations, and Government Agencies:

[PROJECT NAME] is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Fractured Atlas will receive grants for the charitable purposes of [PROJECT NAME], provide oversight to ensure that grant funds are used in accordance with grant agreements, and provide reports as required by the grantor. Contributions for the charitable purposes of [PROJECT NAME] must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.”

Admin Fee in the Budget

If the grant application requires a budget from your project, please be sure to include Fractured Atlas' 8% administrative fee as a line item in your expenses. This allows the funder to have full transparency and understanding of where that portion of the funds will go. We will be checking for this line item in our review of your materials. 

The administrative fee is assessed on the total funds that come into Fractured Atlas. When a funder wishes to cover the fees, the total donation amount needed to cover the fee is calculated by taking the intended donation and dividing that by 92% (or .92). 

Note: If the funder has a cap on the administrative fee received by a fiscal sponsor that is lower than 8%, please contact Fractured Atlas to discuss the best path forward.

🤝 What Documentation We Provide

Once we have reviewed everything and you have made any necessary changes, we will upload the documents required from Fractured Atlas to the Grant portal or directly to the application. These materials could include any or all of the following:

• Endorsement letter – this certifies that you are fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas and provides our contact information in case the funder needs to get in touch with our staff for any reason.
• IRS determination letter – this is what confirms that Fractured Atlas is a nonprofit organization and is typically required for grant applications.
• Audited financial statements
• Form 990 - the tax document that nonprofits file with the IRS
• Info about our board of directors
• Organization budget
• Other documents as requested by the funder

😬 What happens if I submit to the funder without Fractured Atlas's approval?

It is required in your fiscal sponsorship agreement that we review and approve all grant application materials prior to submitting to the funder. This is the only way we can guarantee that Fractured Atlas can receive the funds on your behalf, should you be awarded. 

We know that not all grant applications are the same, and we work to be flexible and adaptable under unique circumstances. Please be in contact with us as early as possible, if you feel your circumstance is unique or you have questions about the best way to proceed with the funder and Fractured Atlas. We will work with you to figure out the best next steps.

Applications submitted for Fractured Atlas’s review that have already been submitted to a funder will be subject to our rush fee of $75. Repeat grant application submissions without Fractured Atlas review is a violation of your fiscal sponsorship agreement, and may ultimately result in termination.