Center for Documentary Arts
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 861346297
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2021–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- Fresno, CA, USA
- Phone
- 5103861506
- Rating
- 77
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Arts, Culture, and Humanities N.E.C.
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $35,679
- Expenses
- $23,496
- Assets
- $31,624
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
4 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Joel Pickford (President & CFO)
People named in this filing
- Joel Pickford (President & CFO)
- Michael Chen (Secretary)
- KC Chhan (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-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Our mission is to facilitate and promote documentary work in all media that tells stories of peoples from around the world, their cultural evolution, migrations, struggles and triumphs. Documentary work will be supported through direct funding, fiscal sponsorship, technical and creative services, as well as distribution and outreach. Sponsored activities can also include events, exhibitions, research, education, acquisition and archiving of documentary media. We will also make education grants to the families of people who have worked as cultural interpreters on our projects.
What it reported doing in 2025
Facilitating and promoting documentary work in all media that tells stories of people from around the world, their cultural evolution, migrations, struggles and triumphs.
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
- Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 78% for direct work, and 22% for grants.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and a large share of total spending goes to programs. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and program spending has declined or grown slowly.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 62
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 62
- Growth: 60
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 52.1%; rating input score 52
- Program expense ratio: 79.1%; rating input score 79
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 34.1%; rating input score 83; 83rd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.35; rating input score 55; 55th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 56; 56th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: -0.6% per year; rating input score 0; 46th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 17.9% per year; rating input score 100; 88th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 72.9% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 52.1% of revenue deployed · 79.1% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 2 filed program accomplishments · $19K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 4 people listed
- Consistency: 8 of 8 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 5 filing years from 2021 to 2025
- 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.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 52/100.
- High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 55/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 56/100.