As part of our process of assembling stories for our 30th Anniversary Publication, FJC contacted a number of longtime partners to ask how critical stages of their organization’s life cycle were affected by FJC’s support. We were blown away by the detailed, specificity of their responses!
For reasons of space, we condensed their testimonials in our publication, and we present them in full here.
Back in 2014, The Climate Museum was just getting started, and our approach to climate engagement — using arts and cultural programming to help people feel and act on their own civic agency on climate change — was so new that it struck a lot of people as eccentric. Fast forward to now, and it’s commonplace that we need arts and culture to move forward. FJC played an important role in that shift.
In those early days, we formed a corporate entity to get us started, the Climate Museum Launch Project, and conducted due diligence on fiscal sponsors, knowing we’d need tax-deductible donations to get off the ground. Our first choice quickly became clear: FJC. The FJC team was recommended by the experts with whom we conferred, and its reputation in the field was impeccable.
That decision served us well; FJC is built into the foundation of our success. The FJC team managed all administrative and regulatory aspects of our revenues for several years; we simply could not have handled this on our own, even setting aside the wait for 501(c)(3) status. FJC was so great to work with that we stuck around for a while even after receiving our determination letter from the IRS.
Even after our transition to independence, FJC continued to advance our interests. Significant donors forgot about the transition and sent checks to FJC more than once. Even though they’d also forgotten to identify the Museum in the memo line, the FJC team spotted the error, alerted us, and sent us the checks that had been made out to them.
In short, FJC provided the Climate Museum with an indispensable service and did so at the highest level of excellence. Their partnership was essential, and I’ve recommended them frequently over the years.—Miranda Massie, Founder and Director, The Climate Museum
