Essie Justice Group

Overview

Mission

Essie Justice Group Is building a loving and powerful community of women with incarcerated loved ones. It's mission is to end mass incarcerations harm to women and communities.

What it reported doing in 2024

In 2024, Essie Justice Group provided leadership development and healing justice programming for women with incarcerated loved ones in California and advocated for material improvements to women with incarcerated loved ones' lives. We facilitated three, nine-week Healing to Advocacy Program cohorts, graduating 31 new women with incarcerated loved ones from this program into our Essie Sisterhooda support network of 500 (and growing) system-impacted women with access to a monthly membership support group, free therapy, resource sharing, community building events, and ongoing opportunities for leadership development. To support women being able to attend our programming, we provided transportation support, childcare, and over 40 hot and healthy meals to women and their children in 2024. We trained 42 members via our Campaign School on how to make change in their communities and worked in partnership with a local advocacy coalition to support the creation and implementation of Care First pretrial services in Los Angeles County.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 95% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
Distribution model
Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
800956021
IRS 990 coverage
2016–2024
Forms available
Form 990 2024, Form 990-N 2015
Headquarters
Oakland, CA, USA
Phone
5107402508
Rating
75
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Inmate Support

Official website

The verdict

SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and expenses are high relative to revenue.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 67
  • Transparency & Controls: 74
  • Accountability: 94
  • Sustainability: 49
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 72%; rating input score 72
  • Program expense ratio: 72.4%; rating input score 72
  • Fundraising efficiency: $7.97 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 30; 30th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: 2 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 33
    • Compensation committee: Pass
    • Independent consultant: Missing
    • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
    • Written employment contract: Missing
    • Compensation survey or study: Missing
    • Board or committee approval: Pass
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: Limited
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 90%; rating input score 90; 21st percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: Pass
    • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 2.7%; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.73; rating input score 71; 71st percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.11; rating input score 57; 57th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 22.5%; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 23.6% per year; rating input score 100; 88th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 14.4% per year; rating input score 100; 80th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 24.6% per year; rating input score 100; 89th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 72% of revenue deployed · 72.4% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 9 of 10 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $4.2M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $208K · 18 people listed · 2 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $664K reported
  • Consistency: 31 of 31 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors and executive pay
  • Filing history: 8 annual filings from 2016 to 2024
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 9 filed money-flow records
  • Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
  • People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
  • Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.

Leadership & pay

18 people listed

Highest reported compensation

  • Gina Clayton-Johnson (Executive Dir.): $208,224 total reported compensation
  • Lily Mandlin (Deputy Dir.): $182,806 total reported compensation
  • Kelly Phipps (Dir. Communications & Partnerships): $163,523 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: FY2024.