American Conservation Film Festival Inc

What it reported doing in 2024

The american conservation film festival was held at the 400 seat frank center on the shepherd university campus. The event offered 28 films (including one oscar-nominated short) in ten screenings across a four-day weekend in march. Every film had open-captions in order to be accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing communities. The festival brought in fifteen special guest speakers and five awards were given to filmmakers along with cash prizes. Audience attendance returned to pre-pandemic levels. During the festival, acff worked to promote a spirit of community to reconnect after the pandemic. To start, acff held a free, guided hike at a local nature preserve followed by a free lecture on appalachian biodiversity and resiliency in the mountain state. A large room adjacent to the theater was rented and area conservation nonprofits came to set up exhibits to engage the public. As a culminating event for the festival, special guests and audience members joined together for a community dinner at the appalachian restaurant, alma bea and were encouraged to discuss their favorite films. Acff creates several opportunities to foster youth engagement during the calendar year, as well as at the festival. In the fall, local conservation filmmakers designed and taught a free, next gen filmmaker workshop for students in grades 5-9 at the shepherdstown library. This allowed them to gain valuable skills to create and enter a short film in acffs next generation capture conservation contest. The contest granted four awards to student filmmakers under the age of 18 along with cash prizes totaling 550. The winning high school team got to have their film screened during the festival. Additionally, all festival screenings are made free for students 18 and under and college students with id. Acff staff worked with the environmental studies department of shenandoah university to allow students to review festival films and put on a best of fest event in october for students and the general public. Throughout the year, we also screened films at the barns of rose hill in berryville, va, at the oak spring garden foundation in upperville, va, at docweek middleburg in va and more locally at the national conservation training center, the shepherdstown public library, and morgan grove park

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 84.5%; rating input score 85
• Program expense ratio: 84.1%; rating input score 84

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -0.5%; rating input score 31; 31st percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.98; rating input score 59; 59th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.11; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: -1.5% per year; rating input score 0; 25th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: -2.9% per year; rating input score 0; 12th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 4.3% per year; rating input score 100; 42nd percentile among comparable filings