Foundation for Sustainable Development

Overview

Mission

The Foundation for Sustainable Development FSD or the Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in Oakland, California, whose mission is to achieve community-driven goals through asset-based development and international exchange in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. FSD? s approach focuses on mobilizing resources? human, economic, and natural? for sustainable, life-changing initiatives. The Foundation uses an asset-based community development approach that encourages self-reliance and inspires appreciation of existing resources in the community and the confidence to build upon them. FSD aims to constantly challenge itself and others to do more with what we have. The Foundation believes that with an attitude of resourcefulness, positive change is possible even in low-resource settings.

Operating model

Revenue model

Earned-program. 81% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.

Distribution model

Direct operator. The filing allocates 93% 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 - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and most voting board members are independent. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.

Rating breakdown

• Financial Efficiency: 84
• Transparency & Controls: 55
• Accountability: 74
• Sustainability: 20
• Growth: 0

Detailed rating inputs

Details

• Where the money goes: 88.3% of revenue deployed · 88.4% of spending went to programs
• Governance: 17 of 17 board members independent · 3 of 8 filing controls reported
• Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $818K in reported program spending
• Leadership: top reported pay $85K · 19 people listed
• Consistency: 32 of 33 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
• Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, and grants
• Filing history: 6 filing years from 2012 to 2017
• Contacts: How to reach this organization
• Money network: 2 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.

• High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight: 7 of 8 not reported.
• Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 7 not reported.
• High — Transparency & Controls: Major donor itemization scored 0/100.
• Review — Transparency & Controls: Grant itemization coverage scored 50/100.
• High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
• High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
• Review — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 55/100.
• Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 36/100.
• High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 2/100.
• High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
• High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 2/100.
• High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 19/100.
• Review — Transparency & Controls: Foreign grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
• High — Grant Readiness: Automatic revocation: this organization had its federal tax-exempt status automatically revoked.
• High — Grant Readiness: California registration: this organization is not authorized to operate as a charity in California.