Cultivate Culinary School and Catering Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 813306113
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2017–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- South Bend, IN, USA
- Phone
- 8777252016
- Rating
- 90
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Standard
- Sector
- Job Training
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $14,330,216
- Expenses
- $12,761,991
- Assets
- $19,834,771
- Liabilities
- $8,150,532
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
12 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- GRANT HELLWARTH (PRESIDENT)
- JOHN TIPPMANN III (VICE PRESIDENT)
- TROY HOLLAND (PAST PRESIDENT)
- JIM CONKLIN (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
Highest reported compensation
- JIM CONKLIN (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $130,656 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Through strategic partnerships, cultivate food rescue will be the leader in perishable food rescue, procurement, redistribution, and education in order to meet the nutritional needs of our communities.
What it reported doing in 2024
Cultivate serves as a food and logistics hub between food service organizations that have excess food and those who are food insecure. We distribute our rescued food to two primary sources: school age kids who are on free and reduced lunch and social service agencies like pantries and soup kitchens who feed the food insecure on a dailybasis. The focus of the cultivate cares food network (ccfn) is to provide valuable, much needed, perishable food items like meat, cheese, fresh fruit, vegetables and proteins. We rescue, store and deliver this food at no cost to the agencies that are in our network. We do this so less people, especially kids, go hungry and to reduce the harmful impact that food waste has on the environment. During the fiscal year ending 06/30/2025, the ccfn program donated 4,398,275 million pounds of perishable food items and 292,553 frozen meals to approximately 200+ pantries and social service agencies and 70 schools located in the Indiana counties of st. Joseph, elkhart and marshall.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 96% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
STRONG - 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 total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 82
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Accountability: 95
- Sustainability: 62
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 80.5%; rating input score 81
- Program expense ratio: 90.3%; rating input score 90
- Fundraising efficiency: $21.43 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 59; 59th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 90.9%; rating input score 91; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 8 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 10.9%; rating input score 70; 70th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.55; rating input score 52; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.41; rating input score 36; 36th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 1%; rating input score 85; 85th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 37.5% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 34.2% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 41.2% per year; rating input score 100; 98th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 80.5% of revenue deployed · 90.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 10 of 11 board members independent · 8 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 2 filed program accomplishments · $11.5M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $131K · 12 people listed
- Highest-paid contractors: 3 contractors listed · $408K reported
- Consistency: 34 of 34 current checks pass
- Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 7 filing years from 2017 to 2024
- 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.
Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 59/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 52/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 36/100.
- High — Grant Readiness: Federal audit findings: this organization reported findings in its latest federal Single Audit.