Dear COSA subscribers,
The COSA Steering Committee is very excited to announce that COSA has been accepted as a project of the Colorado Nonprofit Development Center (CNDC).
Background: From COSA’s inception in 2000 up until last year, COSA’s finances were held by Larimer County. This model has worked very well but as the annual conference has grown we started to explore options for a business model that would serve COSA into the future. The Steering Committee researched a number of options, including forming our own 501(c)3, and merging with a like-minded organization such as the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts (CCLT) and the Colorado Parks and Recreation Association (CPRA). CCLT, CPRA, and other organizations host an annual conference and provide services that apply to aspects of the work we do as open space programs, but none of them are a perfect fit for the range of services under the open space umbrella. Ultimately we landed on the fiscal sponsor model, in which the sponsor provides the operational framework and back-of-house support while allowing us to focus on the work we do—mainly, putting on our annual conference.
CNDC is a 501(c)3 formed in 1999 by a group of community and foundation leaders to provide support to the nonprofit sector. The fiscal sponsor model provides projects with the legal framework to operate without having to form their own 501(c)3. CNDC charges a 10% fee on revenues in return for the services it provides.
This is great news and we are excited to share it with you! Please don’t hesitate to contact me or any other Steering Committee member if you have questions. Just one more thing to celebrate at our 2017 conference coming up 9/18-20 in Breckenridge. Watch for conference details and registration coming out soon!
Thanks for your continued support of COSA,
Kerri