OLS Fiscally Sponsored Community (FSC) Onboarding process

As part of OLS’s commitment to growing open researchers, OLS is experimenting with offering Fiscal Sponsorship. This model is well-known in the United States, with sponsors such as Numfocus and Code for Science and Society existing as nonprofit organisations that offer fiscal sponsorship for their constituent communities. To our knowledge are fewer UK-based fiscal sponsors that specialise in open research related needs, and/or that are willing to take on small projects.

Communities that have participated in an OLS training cohort, or worked with OLS in other capacities, are welcome to apply to become a fiscally sponsored community (FSC).

What Fiscal Sponsorship is, and why it can be useful

If you’re a researcher who has worked in academia before, you probably had support from your institution to handle a lot of the human and legal infrastructure - e.g. making sure staff get paid on time, issuing contracts, reviewing budgets, and consulting with legal advice as/when needed. In scenarios where your project doesn’t fit in a university any longer (or never did), becoming a businessperson or entrepreneur might not have been part of your plans!

Fiscal sponsors can support you by handling these types of activities even outside a university:

• Issuing contracts for staff and contractors
• Maintaining an accounting team to handle
  • Monthly payroll (PAYE in the UK)
  • Ad-hoc invoices
  • Pay scales and annual inflation-based pay rises
  • Tax, benefits and pension
  • Yearly reporting to HMRC or other governmental bodies in your country.
  • Making payments internationally, e.g. honoraria or stipends for volunteers
  • Holding your money in a UK-based bank account associated with a registered UK Company.
• Working with a legal team to create new contracts and review higher-risk and/or high-value contracts and grants.
• Assessing grant application budgets to ensure true costs of a grant are considered (e.g. overheads such as building premises costs, employers’ national insurance, software licences, etc).

FAQ

I would like to apply to become an OLS FSC. What do I need to do?

Please email fsc[at]we-are-ols.org to discuss your options, or message the FSC team in Slack.

Are there any minimum requirements for becoming an FSC?

There are! Please fork the FSC community template repo, which should guide you through creating issues as to-dos for the basic docs we expect. You can also read our internal policy page for FSCs

The TL;DR version of the requirements are:

• At least three senior members who are responsible for organisational governance.
• A dispute resolution process (OLS will not resolve disputes on your behalf).
• A succession policy - e.g. what happens if key project members leave or become unresponsive / unavailable for some reason.

If you think you can’t yet meet those requirements, we’re still happy to chat - we might want to consider working with you as part of a resident fellowship instead.

If you’re thinking of applying for a grant opportunity, please contact OLS with as much time in advance as possible before you submit the grant application, so we can offer advice and help verify that the budget works for us and for you.

I’ve never applied for a grant before! Do you have any advice?

Definitely! In fact, we prefer to work hand-in-hand with our new FSCs and resident fellows when they are applying for their first funding rounds.

Does it cost anything to be an FSC?

Nothing up-front. If you’re awarded any grants, we usually ask for a fee of around 15% of the incoming sum. This helps us pay our program officers who manage the finance, as well as covering costs like legal and accounting. There are scenarios where this number may vary though, depending on the grant requirements.

Can an FSC hire people?

Yes. However, there are costs involved in this.

In short, for every £100 of salary, there are £60 of extra costs - giving a total of £160. Salaries should therefore be budgeted at 160% of the pre-tax cost.

If the person is based in the UK, they will be onboarded as an OLS employee. Their salary will break down as follows:

• The pre-tax salary splits into two sets of cost: employee PAYE contributions (National Insurance, income tax, pension contributions, and Student Finance payments) and the money they take home at the end of the month.
• Additionally, we need to budget an extra 60% to pay for employer contributions to tax and pension, as well as additional costs (such as payroll, administrative costs, and insurance).

If the person is based outside of the UK, they will be onboarded as a contractor. Their payments will break down as follows:

• They receive a 15% uplift to pre-tax salary. This is because we don’t need to cover employer or employee costs in the UK. Contractors must make their own local tax payments. They are encouraged to organise local pensions and insurance.
• Due to the reduced tax and pension burden, we budget 45% for payroll, administrative, and other costs.

The full 160% should be budgeted into all grants. The OLS team can support you with this if needed.

What does the FSC onboarding process look like?

Definitions

FSC

Fiscally sponsored community: A group of individuals with interest in open research or other OLS-adjacent domains that would like assistance handling money, contracts, and possibly employment.

Current Fiscally Sponsored Communities (FSC)