California Native Garden Foundation

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
721562616
IRS 990 coverage
2021–2023
Forms available
Form 990 2023, Form 990-N 2013
Location
San Jose, CA, USA
Phone
4086661518
Rating
78
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Fund Raising and/or Fund Distribution

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$666,559
Expenses
$641,959
Assets
$37,262
Liabilities
$7,745

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2023. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

11 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Melissa Blum (President)

People named in this filing

  • Melissa Blum (President)
  • Sherry Kaufman (Director)
  • Steven Sanders (Director)

Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2023. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

To roll out a new land-use model in order to leverage urban spaces for education, workforce development and climate resiliency, through partnerships. In this way, we can build food security and food sovereignty for our communities, while restoring local ecology, and giving youth the ethic and the skills for a more sustainable future.

What it reported doing in 2023

Nature Camp: Our summer camp is held at our Sustainable Sites.org internationally certified ELSEE (Environmental Lab for Sustainability and Ecological Education) teaching gardens. We are the only certified teaching garden recognized in Santa Clara County, with 200 bench marks that protect ecosystems services in our urban environment. We taught between 50 students for seven weeks. Camp begins at 9am and ends at 3pm. We also offer early drop and late pick up options for working families. Besides at ELSEE, the classes are also taught at Hester Farms, a nearby teaching, training and research farm largely managed by volunteers and overseen by professional staff. The teachers are college students majoring in Early Childhood Education, Environmental Science, Biology, or the Arts. The program is managed by a professional pre-K and a specialist in 6-12-year-old outdoor learning. Over the years, CNGF has developed up to 100 lesson plans in outdoor STEAM education, specifically designed to be taught in a SITES-certified outdoor classroom. Once a week, the campers take field trips led by a naturalist who studied with Native American tribes, and takes campers and families to city and county parks with natural plant communities and riparian.

Operating model

Revenue model
Earned-program. 87% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
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

SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 84
  • Transparency & Controls: 83
  • Accountability: 70
  • Sustainability: 37
  • Growth: 80

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 85.4%; rating input score 85
  • Program expense ratio: 88.7%; rating input score 89
  • Fundraising efficiency: $26.57 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 91.7%; rating input score 92; 12th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: Limited
  • Major donor itemization: Limited
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 2 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 29
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Fail
    • Document-retention policy: Fail
    • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Missing
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 3.7%; rating input score 48; 48th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.06; rating input score 3; 3rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.21; rating input score 32; 32nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 81; 81st percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 43.7% per year; rating input score 100; 94th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 33.4% per year; rating input score 100; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: -7.1% per year; rating input score 0; 5th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 85.4% of revenue deployed · 88.7% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 8 of 8 board members independent · 2 of 7 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $431K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 11 people listed
  • Consistency: 22 of 23 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 3 filed schedules
  • Filing history: 3 filing years from 2021 to 2023
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • 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 — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 6 not reported.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 3/100.
  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 48/100.
  • High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 32/100.