Yesterday, I officially signed an agreement with a services firm that will help us create a US affiliated branch of the Finn Wardman World Explorer Fund. Two thousand five hundred US dollars. The memo line read Finn Wardman World Explorer Fund, Form 1023.
Two years after we set up the Fund. Just over three years after Finn died. The 501(c)(3) is in the eight to ten month IRS review queue now, they say if the file is clean we could actually be fund raising again as soon as 45 days. Most of the last 9 months has gone into applying for charity status for a Bermuda fund, and we still don't have registered charity status. That has been frustrating enough, that I threw in the towel and we have decided to apply for 501.c status so we can start fund raising again.
The Fund is, in the exact phrasing of the terms page, "an unincorporated private grant-making fund established in Bermuda." Not a registered charity. Not a foundation. Not a trust. A grant-making fund. We are not allowed to solicit any funds during this interim phase. Which is fine.
Three of us run it. My wife Kirsten, a close friend who has been part of every decision since the start, and me. We give grants to young people aged 18 to 26 for one-off life-changing experiences they cannot fund themselves. First time on a plane, first time solo travel, first time being in a foreign country. A first silent retreat. A first summer at the camp that changes the course of a life. The application asks for the experience, the cost, and the why.
It would be reasonable to ask why we are forming a US 501(c)(3) on top of a Bermuda private grant-making fund. Three real reasons.
One. US donors. Most of our donor list is American, and it is the biggest donation market in the world. They can give without the 501(c)(3), but they cannot deduct it from their US tax bill. Anyone serious about giving asks whether the receipt is deductible before they cut the cheque. The dual structure makes the answer yes.
Two. Payment rails. Stripe, Apple Pay, the donation widgets that work on a phone, the platforms that distribute small recurring donations to family foundations, most of them need a US tax-exempt entity to plug into. The Bermuda side is fine for a wire from someone who already knows us. The US side is what lets a stranger donate $25 from their phone.
Three. The next ten years. The Fund is small now. We want it to be larger, and we want it to outlast us. The US 501(c)(3) is the long-term home. The Bermuda fund is the short-term operating account. Honestly, this is the reason that I work and is the most important part of the one life, one mission raison d'etre that I am on these days.
What does the operating rhythm for where we are at actually look like, two years in?
A quarterly review. The three of us read the active applications, score them on a written rubric, and decide on a call. The decision matrix is seven weighted criteria with a numeric score per criterion that we have to defend out loud if anyone disagrees. Money sits in the Bermuda account. Notifications fire and we set up a selection team committee when a new application lands. Grants pay out on a confirmation of fit, which means the applicant has to confirm the place, the retreat is booked, the flights are priced and all in the budget plan.
What did we get wrong in the first batch?
Frankly, going with the Bermuda Community Foundation was a bad idea, but it's not really my place to speak negatively about them. They told us we would be a good fit, and quickly changed their minds when they understood what we were actually doing. We've been kind of left out on our own since then, but it's fine. We aren't growing that quickly right now.
We also turned down an application that could have been a maybe. The grant was expensive, and the experience didn't feel like it was a life changing one. The person was asking for some sports coaching and assistance with a term at Uni. We are not a scholarship fund, even though we did help out one Mexican female to fund a UK masters degree. That was actually under our top grant budget, and felt more life changing to her since she would be living and traveling abroad. I am pretty sure that at the end of the experience, she will be fundamentally a different person, with more confidence to go out on her own and tackle new challenges.
The hardest part of running the Fund has not been money, it has been not having enough time to do all of the things we want to do. Raise more funds, take on more grants, do more writing and marketing. But, we do what we can and make progress weekly. This week alone we had 2 grantee meetings, both we are likely to accept and heard 3 confirmations back from previous grantees on how much change the grants have made in their life.
If you want to know what the Fund is doing right now, the latest grants and the applicant pipeline both live at finnwardman.com. The site is also where the 501(c)(3) status will update when the IRS letter lands, hopefully without the request-for-information detour that turns an eight-month wait into fourteen.
The hours I am not on client work, the family time, the fund work, the writing, all of it is what the rebuild after Finn is for. Day 5's piece on the Vipassana Reset is the closest companion to this one. Different site, same load.
Three years in. We finally have the bones of a small foundation that runs without me being the only person who can decide a grant. The 501(c)(3) is the next year of work.
Monthly Revenues $11,800 | Clients 2 | Prospects (first ai marketing employee coming out next week) | Team: Me + Jan (CTO)
Day 51 of 365.