Bird School Project
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 320516805
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2020–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2023, Form 990-EZ 2024, Form 990-N 2016
- Location
- Santa Cruz, CA, USA
- Rating
- 95
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Human Service Organizations
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $199,441
- Expenses
- $178,834
- Assets
- $80,199
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Kevin Condon (President)
- Jessica Correa (Executive Director)
People named in this filing
- Elizabeth Andrews (Treasurer)
- Kevin Condon (President)
- Michael Bolte (Secretary)
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 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Bird School Project offers outdoor science and birding education programs for students in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties. Through on-campus visits students learn bird identification observation skills field journaling and scientific inquiry using binoculars and field guides. By providing programs at schools the organization eliminates transportation and cost barriers to outdoor education. In the past year Bird School Project served over 6,000 students focusing on under-resourced public schools and multilingual student communities. The organization also supports teachers in integrating outdoor learning and environmental observation into their classrooms.
What it reported doing in 2024
The Bird School Project hosts an annual birding festival for local communities to explore nature and learn about birds in the region through field trips and workshops facilitated by leaders with expertise in the field of birding art and natural history.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 76% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent spending detail to tell whether the nonprofit works directly or through others.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Some filed totals do not add up and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 98
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 39
- Growth: 80
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 96.5%; rating input score 97
- Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100
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: 10.3%; rating input score 59; 59th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.45; rating input score 35; 35th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
- Officer compensation ratio: 34.3%; rating input score 9; 9th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 20.3% per year; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 9.4% per year; rating input score 100; 65th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -3.9% per year; rating input score 0; 18th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 96.5% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 3 filed program accomplishments · $193K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 5 people listed
- Consistency: 5 of 6 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2020 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 3 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.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Part III program expenses within total did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 59/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 35/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 9/100.