American Focus Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 521661955
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2011–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2022, Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- Charlottesville, VA, USA
- Phone
- 4348250225
- Rating
- 96
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $98,070
- Expenses
- $118,852
- Assets
- $112,874
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
8 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Ellen Wagner (President)
- Mary Jane Elliott (Vice President)
People named in this filing
- Ellen Wagner (President)
- Paul Wagner (Secretary)
- Shelagh Brown (Treasurer)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Our mission is to produce films on American and international cultural subjects.
What it reported doing in 2025
Documentary film productions
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 69% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 75% for direct work, and 25% for grants.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Expenses are high relative to revenue and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 98
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 32
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 95.6%; rating input score 96
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -21.2%; rating input score 21; 21st percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.95; rating input score 46; 46th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 50.5%; rating input score 3; 3rd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 4.6% per year; rating input score 100; 60th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 2.9% per year; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 4.5% per year; rating input score 100; 55th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 95.6% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $114K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 8 people listed
- Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 6 filing years from 2011 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 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.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 21/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 46/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 3/100.