While there are numerous quality resources aimed at developing and optimizing nonprofit fiduciary boards (e.g. Board Source), to date, resources tailored to inform and support the development of Advisory Councils for fiscally sponsored projects are limited and generally not publicly available.  To address this knowledge deficit, in Partnership with Schulman Consulting, we have created and are releasing under a Creative Commons license, the following resources all available here [Link]:

• Orientation Deck or Fiscal Sponsors on policy and practice considerations when supporting the use of Advisory Councils.

• Orientation Deck for Project Leaders on the definitions, benefits, and design considerations for developing an Advisory Council.

• Advisory Council Charter Builder Project leaders can use this DIY tool to develop their own customized Advisory Council charter.

In the coming weeks and months we will host several orientation sessions on this topic for sponsors and projects and make the resulting recordings available via the link above.  Our first two conversations will be for fiscal sponsors taking place on March 4th and 6th. The March 4th conversation will provide an overview of the project and review the Deck for Sponsors.  For the March 6th conversation, we’ll orient sponsors to the charter builder that they can then take and repurpose to support their community of projects.  Based on feedback and learnings from these initial conversations, we will design subsequent sessions for fiscally sponsored projects to be rolled out later in  2025.  Please follow these links to register: Link to register for March 4th Conversation and Link here to register for March 6th Conversation. Also note - if you’re already registered for Schulman’s ‘FS Conversations’, you should automatically receive an invite for March 4th and if you’re already on Social Impact Commons’ mailing list, you should automatically receive an invite for March 6th)