Center for Community Stewardship Information

The mission of the Center for Community Stewardship (C4CS) is to energize and facilitate individuals and groups to be active in matters that affect their lives, cultivating collaborative conversations about visions and activities that can make their community a more wonderful place. We do this by offering two programs: fiscal sponsorship and community facilitation. Fiscal Sponsorship is a formal arrangement in which the Center for Community Stewardship sponsors projects that lack tax-exempt status. This alternative to starting a nonprofit allows projects to seek grants and solicit tax-deductible donations under C4CS’s exempt status. C4CS fiscal sponsorship offers projects comprehensive finance and accounting service, general liability insurance, human resources and payroll services (for projects with employees), and tax, audit, and other support services. A few of our 25 current projects include: Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, Fair Trade Holiday Festival, CORE, Open Doors for Refugees, and March for Science Madison. Community Facilitation services include advising, coaching, facilitation, and training about facilitation, dialogue circles, and community visioning processes. Our goal is to increase the capacity of community initiatives to hold meetings and community engagement processes that are inclusive, participatory, and well-facilitated. We offer consulting, facilitation and meeting support, and "Introduction to Facilitation" trainings to nonprofits, schools, and other community-building initiatives in the Madison area.