Asian Americans United Inc

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
222981076
IRS 990 coverage
2014–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025
Location
Philadelphia, PA, USA
Phone
2159251538
Rating
86
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Youth Development Programs

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$1,107,429
Expenses
$1,128,179
Assets
$2,177,902
Liabilities
$206,738

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

11 people listed

Highest reported compensation

  • VIVIAN CHANG (EXECUTIVE DI): $80,418 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

Aau exists so that people of asian ancestry in philadelphia exercise leadership to build their communities and unite to challenge oppression. Aau's arts and culture work creates social change through engaging community members in: building leadership and community, realizing community members' inherent artistic and creative potential, and building pride in cultural heritage. Aau's youth work exists so that the youth become individually, socially, and politically aware; exercise their voice; and participate in active struggles for justice. Through this work, we create leaders who sustain, fight for, and give back to our communities.

What it reported doing in 2025

See schedule o aau works diligently to meet the needs of our community, which is impacted by anti-asian racism and attacks on immigrants. Aau continued to uplift working-class stories through the "our chinatown" storytelling project, which provides an experiential learning experience to hundreds of people new to philadelphia's asian american history. Our civic engagement (ce) team continued to promote active citizenship by hosting citizenship clinics, screening people for citizenship and green card applications, n- 400, i-90, and i-912 applications, and reviewing and referring eligible candidates to our legal partners for additional assistance. The ce team engages community members who are u.s. Citizens to excercise their right to vote by hosting voter registration events in chinatown and throughout the city. They conducted get out the vote events including phone banking, text banking, door knocking and mailings to encourage people to vote, and polling monitoring to continue enforcement of language access as required under the fedeeral voting rights act. Aau organized a collective voice and people power against displacement that threatens our neighborhoods. In addition to protecting our community, aau worked to preserve and celebrate our culture and nurture our next generation of leaders. Through our youth leadership programs, aau ran a summer camp serving 100+ children across the city; facilitated meetings and brought the inch-by-inch garden to life in the spring; taught dozens of elementary-school youth about multicultural literacy and education for liberation; and rallied for immigrant rights and against discrimination in education. The chinese youth organizing project (cyop) held in-person meetings and workshops throughout the school year providing safe spaces for immigrant youth to explore issues important to them. Cyop summer youth uncovered hidden stories and created capstone projects. Over 300 youth volunteered at the 30th annual mid-autumn festival, and over 20 youth served as lead coordinators of the festival, which featured cultural heritage performances, arts activities, carnival folk games, resource information and culminated with our lantern parade. Aau celebrated 40 years of serving the community and growing leadership in each generation. From immigrant justice to civic engagement, from workers' rights to equitable development, from saving chinatown to building alternative visions for the future, aau is entering the next decade empowered by the foundational organizng we have done and the relationships that sustain us.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 81% 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.

The verdict

STRONG - 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: 82
  • Transparency & Controls: 92
  • Accountability: 95
  • Sustainability: 40
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 86.6%; rating input score 87
  • Program expense ratio: 84.5%; rating input score 85
  • Fundraising efficiency: $13.88 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 45; 45th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: Limited
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 7 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 88
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Fail
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • 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: -1.9%; rating input score 25; 25th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.93; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.09; rating input score 35; 35th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 7.1%; rating input score 45; 45th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 13.9% per year; rating input score 100; 69th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 14.3% per year; rating input score 100; 73rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 23.9% per year; rating input score 100; 84th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 86.6% of revenue deployed · 84.5% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 10 of 10 board members independent · 7 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $954K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $80K · 11 people listed
  • Consistency: 29 of 29 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors
  • Filing history: 11 filing years from 2014 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
  • Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
  • 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.

  • Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 45/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 25/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Whistleblower policy not reported.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 35/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 45/100.