Center for Action and Contemplation
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 850354965
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2012–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Albuquerque, NM, USA
- Phone
- 5052429588
- Rating
- 75
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Humanities Organizations
- Affiliation
- Christianity
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $16,799,194
- Expenses
- $17,480,416
- Assets
- $17,834,339
- Liabilities
- $1,566,486
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
17 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- MICHAEL POFFENBERGER (EXECUTIVE DI): $225,344 total reported compensation
- TISHA FORD (DEPUTY E.D.): $197,524 total reported compensation
- DREW JACKSON MANAGING DIRECTOR OF (FORMATION): $169,523 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The center for action and contemplation introduces spiritual seekers to the transformative wisdom of the christian contemplative tradition and nurtures its emergence in service to the healing of our world.
What it reported doing in 2025
In 2025, the living school launched its first public offering of the living school's essentials of engaged contemplation course, which registered 500 course participants. In 2025, the online education program registered approximately 3,150 students in 3 unique online courses which included one new course and two existing courses that were redesigned for cac's new community learning platform, cac connect, which launched in april of 2025. Work in 2025 also included refinements to 2 other existing online courses to be ready for launch on cac connect in 2026. The daily meditations built and delivered 365 meditations, one for each day of the year, via email to over 360,000 recipients. Cac hosted 4 virtual and one hybrid events in 2025 which collectively had approximately 19,000 attendees. Cac produced 4 podcasts which had 3 million downloads in 2025.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 66% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 72% for direct work, and 28% for grants.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - 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: 66
- Transparency & Controls: 76
- Accountability: 95
- Sustainability: 28
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 72.1%; rating input score 72
- Program expense ratio: 66.5%; rating input score 67
- Fundraising efficiency: $10.65 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 35; 35th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 93.3%; rating input score 93; 16th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 2 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 33
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Pass
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 99%; rating input score 99; 42nd percentile among comparable filings
- 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: 8 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 89
- 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: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -4.1%; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.02; rating input score 30; 30th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.09; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 6%; rating input score 50; 50th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 14.4% per year; rating input score 100; 80th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 12.1% per year; rating input score 100; 80th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 10.6% per year; rating input score 100; 69th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 72.1% of revenue deployed · 66.5% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 11 of 11 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $11.6M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $225K · 17 people listed · 2 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Highest-paid contractors: 2 contractors listed · $915K reported
- Consistency: 35 of 36 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 13 filing years from 2012 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 34 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 28 filed related-organization links
- 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.
- Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 35/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 12/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 30/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 50/100.