Streamline Project and Operating Expenditures

Sponsors apply as a 501(c)(3) organization, submit legal entity details and EIN, and complete identity and business verification through Mazlo's banking partner. Once approved, the sponsor configures projects, team members, accounting codes, and approval workflows. Sponsored projects don't apply independently—the sponsor creates their account and invites their admin. Projects need a designated admin, basic program details, and agreed-upon permissions and fee structure with the sponsor. Bank accounts are FDIC-insured through Mazlo's banking partner. Sponsors can optionally connect QuickBooks or Sage Intacct for accounting sync.

Account types control how funds flow, fees apply, and reporting behaves for each sponsored project. For example, Model A projects may handle donations differently than Model C projects; Internal Program accounts suit sponsor-run initiatives rather than external sponsored groups. The sponsor sets the account type when creating a project. Types affect shared cost rules, donation handling, and how transactions settle between project and organization accounts.

Grants in Mazlo track pledged, spent, and available balances with per-project allocations. A single award from a funder can be split across projects, and each project's drawdown is visible separately. Sponsors see grant utilization org-wide; project leads see only their allocation. Payment requests can be tied to a specific grant so spend counts against the right award.

No—not unless you grant that access. Permissions are scoped to specific projects. A project admin sees their own balances, transactions, and requests; they don't see sibling projects. Sponsor staff with org-level roles retain full visibility across all sponsored projects from a central dashboard.

Mazlo's shared cost feature automatically applies a configurable sponsor fee on eligible transactions. Set a default percentage at the org or project level, with optional overrides by accounting code or project type. When qualifying activity posts, Mazlo calculates the fee and creates settlement entries—so sponsor overhead recovery isn't a manual calculation on every payment.

Yes—that's the default workflow. Project staff submit payment requests; sponsor approvers review before payment goes out via ACH, check, or another configured method. You control who can submit, who can approve, and whether balance checks block requests that exceed available funds. Sponsors get control without processing every invoice themselves.

Donation campaigns can route gifts directly to a sponsored project's account. Donors give through a public giving page; Mazlo books the gift to the correct project and maintains donor records in Contacts. Because the sponsor is the legal 501(c)(3), tax acknowledgment letters are issued under the sponsor's EIN. The sponsor can track which project received each gift while maintaining compliant receipting.

Sponsors create projects from the organization dashboard, assign an account type (Model A, Model C, Internal Program, etc.), configure permissions, and invite the project's admin. The project admin gets scoped access to their account—not the sponsor's full org view. New sponsor organizations go through an application and verification process (legal entity details, EIN, identity verification) before accounts are activated.

Yes. Sponsored projects can have dedicated checking accounts within Mazlo, with their own balances, transactions, and reporting. The sponsor still sees all project activity from the organization level. Some sponsors give every project its own account; others use fewer accounts with project-level accounting. Mazlo supports either approach.