Fort Bend County Master Gardeners Inc

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
760668230
IRS 990 coverage
2025–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2024
Location
Rosenberg, TX, USA
Rating
64
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Garden Club, Horticultural Program

Reported finances

Revenue
$55,826
Expenses
$50,682
Assets
$109,176
Liabilities
$0

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

Leadership & pay

12 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Robert Welch (President)
  • Everett Blanton (Vice President)
  • Carol Gaas (Immediate Past President)

People named in this filing

  • Monte Hambleton (Director - Fundraising)
  • Donna Blackburn (Director - Youth Activities)
  • Tom Frederick (Director - Demonstration Gardens)

Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

To educate residents using research-based horticultural information and to promote conservation and sustainable gardening landscape practices. Key activities include answering residents questions teaching classes to help people create beautiful and productive gardens and landscapes maintaining demonstration and teaching gardens working with youth to expand knowledge of horticulture and food production participate in community events and sharing knowledge publishing articles and other media to promote research-based practices.

What it reported doing in 2025

Education and Outreach includes youth activities community events and community programs. Our youth activities committee provided age-appropriate horticultural learning opportunities to children and teens. They fulfilled this objective by bringing activities to schools - public private and home-schooled community events Girl and Boy Scout groups and FFA and 4-H members. Total number of children and youth served were 3,511 which includes the adults attending as well. Our community programs held a Grow Your Own series of seven classes and a Landscape Success series of seven classes which had total registrations from the community of 3,819 for the two programs. The Butterfly Celebration was a community event held to educate the public on horticultural tour the Demonstration Gardens and offered plants to anyone interested that was attending. This was attended by approximately 400 adults and children

Operating model

Revenue model
Other-operating. 62% of the money available for current operations came from other operating revenue.
Distribution model
Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent spending detail to tell whether the nonprofit works directly or through others.

The verdict

SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and most voting board members are independent. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and a relatively small share of total spending goes to programs.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 43
  • Transparency & Controls: 92
  • Accountability: 70
  • Sustainability: 54
  • Growth: 60

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 46%; rating input score 46
  • Program expense ratio: 50.7%; rating input score 51
  • Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 91.7%; rating input score 92; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: Limited
  • Major donor itemization: Limited
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 2 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 29
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Fail
    • Whistleblower policy: Fail
    • Document-retention policy: Fail
    • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Missing
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 9.2%; rating input score 61; 61st percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.15; rating input score 38; 38th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 58; 58th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: Limited
  • Revenue growth: 4.4% per year; rating input score 100; 73rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 1.4% per year; rating input score 100; 45th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 46% of revenue deployed · 50.7% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 12 of 12 board members independent · 2 of 7 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $26K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 12 people listed
  • Consistency: 23 of 25 current checks pass · 2 findings to review
  • Schedules: 4 filed schedules
  • 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.

  • Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 46/100.
  • Review — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 51/100.
  • High — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 6 not reported.
  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Functional expense sum did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Part IX GrantsToDomesticOrgs column sum did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 38/100.
  • Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 58/100.