Deceleration
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 861931064
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2024–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2023
- Location
- San Antonio, TX, USA
- Phone
- 2102795818
- Rating
- 92
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Research Institutes and Public Policy Analysis
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $190,042
- Expenses
- $174,386
- Assets
- $139,347
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
3 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Marisol Cortez (President)
- Greg Harman (Vice President)
People named in this filing
- Marisol Cortez (President)
- Greg Harman (Vice President)
- Diana Lopez (Secretary)
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
Deceleration is a nonprofit online journal producing original news and analysis responding to our shared ecological, political, and cultural crises. We write at the intersection of environment and justicejournalistically, academically, and creativelywith emphasis on our home communities and bioregion (the watersheds of San Antonio, South Texas, and the Gulf South, broadly). Deceleration is dedicated to cultivating radical imagination that goes to the roots of climate disturbance in historical systems of oppression while expanding and deepening the sorts of solutions we put into practice for protecting and creating the commons.
What it reported doing in 2025
Original Reporting: Produced 101 original stories covering regional environmental/climate justice and human rights news and analysis; 5 podcasts, 12 video stories; and co-produced one story with another media outlet 16 stories republished in 7 outlets: Truthout, the San Antonio Current, WhoWhatWhy, the Texas Observer, Public Health Watch, Popular Resistance, and Portside. Worked with 27 freelance writers who contributed original stories, allowing us to expand our reporting both topically and geographically, moving beyond San Antonio to Central Texas, the Gulf Coast, the Rio Grande Valley, Texas at large, and beyond.
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 total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 89
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 40
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 86.1%; rating input score 86
- Program expense ratio: 93.8%; rating input score 94
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: 8.2%; rating input score 52; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.8; rating input score 52; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
- Officer compensation ratio: 56.6%; rating input score 4; 4th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 30.8% per year; rating input score 100; 83rd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 4.7% per year; rating input score 100; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 12% per year; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 86.1% of revenue deployed · 93.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $164K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 3 people listed
- Consistency: 7 of 7 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 2 filing years from 2024 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
- 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 — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 52/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 52/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 4/100.