Braided Wisdom Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 850813884
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2020–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- San Francisco, CA, USA
- Phone
- 4159090921
- Rating
- 65
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Human Service Organizations
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $701,089
- Expenses
- $413,061
- Assets
- $550,400
- Liabilities
- $3,063
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
7 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Carol Cano (CEO & Executive Director)
Highest reported compensation
- Carol Cano (CEO & Executive Director): $76,277 total reported compensation
- Janet Roos (Treasurer): $41,288 total reported compensation
- Mario Castillo PhD (Director): $2,170 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Empowering diverse communities by fostering transformational change through integrating indigenous wisdom teachings and cross-cultural mindfulness practices.
What it reported doing in 2025
Original Medicine Programs: Original Medicine Yearlong is a psycho-spiritual cross-cultural mindfulness approach to healing and development. The contemplative teachings weave together Indigenous wisdom, mindfulness, and earth-based practices. This program teaches students how to work with the four seasons as tools of self-awareness, to learn the process of tracking one's own changes, and to connect to one's own natural phenomena as a human being. Original Medicine 4-Part Series is a platform for Indigenous elders, teachers, and healers from all four corners of the world to come and share their wisdom. Original Medicine Community Healing Council cultivates the collective practice of listening, witnessing, and holding space for the whole as we heal ourselves by acknowledging what needs to be healed. We work with the seasons, elements, and nature as direct mirrors for the healing process.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 90% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 96% 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
SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and most filed governance safeguards are in place. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and a relatively small share of total spending goes to programs.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 41
- Transparency & Controls: 94
- Accountability: 61
- Sustainability: 65
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 33.3%; rating input score 33
- Program expense ratio: 55.3%; rating input score 55
- Fundraising efficiency: $10.36 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 36; 36th 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: 100%; rating input score 100; 78th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 57.1%; rating input score 57; 15th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 6 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 67
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 41.1%; rating input score 88; 88th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.33; rating input score 52; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.01; rating input score 64; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 29%; rating input score 8; 8th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 23.5% per year; rating input score 100; 83rd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 17.8% per year; rating input score 100; 79th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 14.7% per year; rating input score 100; 69th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 33.3% of revenue deployed · 55.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 4 of 7 board members independent · 6 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 5 filed program accomplishments · $229K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $76K · 7 people listed
- Consistency: 27 of 27 current checks pass
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 6 filing years from 2020 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 3 filed money-flow records
- 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: Mission deployment rate scored 33/100.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 55/100.
- Review — Accountability: Independent voting board scored 57/100.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 36/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 8 not reported.
- Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 52/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 8/100.