Center for Creative Exploration
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 943322708
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2020–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- San Francisco, CA, USA
- Phone
- 4153339515
- Rating
- 88
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Arts Education
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $163,313
- Expenses
- $190,447
- Assets
- $132,489
- Liabilities
- $42,294
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Alyssa Cox (President)
- Megan Chan (Vice President)
People named in this filing
- Claudia Erzinger (Executive Dir.)
- Alyssa Cox (President)
- Janet White (Treasurer)
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 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The Center for Creative Explorations mission is to encourage people of all backgrounds and abilities to use paint and paper as tools for exploring creative expression. We offer painting classes for both adults and children and their families.
What it reported doing in 2025
During 2025, CCE enrolled approximately 574 adult students. This included 88 scholarships (full or partial) and work trades for either health and/or financial reasons. Of those 574 adults, over 100 people participated via Online ZOOM classes, with many residing outside of California. In 2025 we also had a few students drop in online from Europe. CCE offered three weekly classes for adults throughout the year, and monthly introductory and daylong workshops. All classes were offered at a sliding scale, with the Introductory workshops offered at reduced fee to encourage members of the community to participate. CCEs Committed to the Core program, which was introduced in 2024 and had 12 people, grew to 16 people in 2025. They each committed to attending three 5-day intensives, and monthly meetings for 9 months of the year. We will expand this program in 2026 to include three 7-day intensives. We had already enrolled 17 people by the end of 2025.Additionally, the Kids and Family program served 285 kids and 95 parents throughout the year, with monthly Family Days, and several 8-week sessions of Childrens classes. We are adding new teachers, hired for trade, and expanding this program as well.CCE offered two residential weekend retreats to 35 adults. This included several scholarships and people who attended on work trade.In February of 2025, we held a 25th Anniversary Fundraiser. This even drew over 150 people in person, visiting the studio, and over 30 people attending the event online. Many people from the community attended, being introduced to CCE for the first time.As part of our community outreach, we held a free online introduction to intuitive painting event in mid-December, drawing 42 people from the US and Europe.And finally, as part of our extended outreach to other parts of the community, we collaborated with the Zen Center in Green Gulch to offer a residential painting retreat; and will offer that again in 2026. We worked with TECA (Thomas Edison Charter Academy) to offer a workshop for professional development for counselors and intuitive painting workshops for their 6th graders.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent revenue detail to tell how this nonprofit funds its work.
- 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. Expenses are high relative to revenue and assets have declined or grown slowly.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 85
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 21
- Growth: 80
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 90.3%; rating input score 90
- Program expense ratio: 77.4%; rating input score 77
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: -16.6%; rating input score 9; 9th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.7; rating input score 47; 47th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.32; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 37.9%; rating input score 9; 9th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 6.3% per year; rating input score 100; 49th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 8% per year; rating input score 100; 57th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -2.1% per year; rating input score 0; 21st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 90.3% of revenue deployed · 77.4% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $147K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 5 people listed
- Consistency: 8 of 8 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 6 filing years from 2020 to 2025
- 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.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 9/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 47/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 9/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 12/100.