Nonprofit Ventures

The Bates Center supports students and alumni in their entrepreneurial endeavors. This includes being a nonprofit fiscal sponsor, which allows donors to receive their tax credit before an organization establishes its own nonprofit status, with the donation first going to Lewis & Clark and then disbursed to the organization.   

An example of this support includes our ongoing partnership with Team Intrepid (Stein Retzlaff BA ’16, Erich Roepke BA ’16, and Thor Retzlaff BA ’18) to solve the problem of human waste left behind at the world’s most beautiful mountains. The Bates Center, in keeping with the Lewis & Clark’s identity as one of the nations top colleges in terms of environmental responsibility and sustainability by the Sierra Club and the Princeton Review, oversees the college’s nonprofit fiscal sponsorship of Team Intrepid’s Do Good Shit (DGS) initiative as it brings high-tech toilets to Patagonia this year and establishes its own 501(c)3 nonprofit status. Learn more about the members of Team Intrepid and this project via the DGS website and a profile published by the Tahoe Quarterly.

To find out if your nonprofit start-up can take advantage of this, please contact Brian Detweiler-Bedell at bedell@lclark.edu.