Democracy Chain

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
871133953
IRS 990-EZ coverage
2023–2025
Forms available
Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2024
Location
Thousand Oaks, CA, USA
Rating
68
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Printing, Publishing

Reported finances

Revenue
$49,164
Expenses
$45,316
Assets
$15,180

Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

7 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Bill Lasarow (President and Publisher)

People named in this filing

  • Bill Lasarow (President and Publisher)
  • Peter Frank (Director)
  • Margaret Hawkins (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

Digital publication of art reviews and public issue commentary.

What it reported doing in 2025

The VAS Email Announcement Service is offered tro art galleries and musems in the Westewr U.S.Visual Art Source publishes two issues of the VAS eNewsletter per month. Each is emailed to ca. 30,000 subscribers. Each article is then published to the visualartsource.org website.

Operating model

Revenue model
Earned-program. 68% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
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

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 revenue has declined or grown slowly.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 60
  • Transparency & Controls: 82
  • Sustainability: 41
  • Growth: 60

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 58.2%; rating input score 58
  • Program expense ratio: 63.1%; rating input score 63

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Limited

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 7.8%; rating input score 57; 57th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.33; rating input score 25; 25th 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: 100% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: -11.1% per year; rating input score 0; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 91.7% per year; rating input score 100; 98th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 58.2% of revenue deployed · 63.1% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: Filed governance answers
  • Accomplishments: 3 filed program accomplishments · $29K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 7 people listed
  • Consistency: 6 of 6 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 1 filed schedules
  • Filing history: 2 filing years from 2023 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.

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: Mission deployment rate scored 58/100.
  • High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 25/100.
  • Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 57/100.
  • Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 56/100.
  • Review — Grant Readiness: California registration: this organization could not be resolved against the register, so the check is unfinished.