Fresh Coast Film Festival

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
812422755
IRS 990-EZ coverage
2019–2025
Forms available
Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2020
Location
Marquette, MI, USA
Phone
9063600052
Rating
78
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Film, Video

Reported finances

Revenue
$105,879
Expenses
$113,782
Assets
$39,412

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

Leadership & pay

9 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • AARON PETERSON (PRESIDENT)

People named in this filing

  • AARON PETERSON (PRESIDENT)
  • JUSTIN SAILOR (VICE PRESIDE)
  • JOHN MILLER (TREASURER)

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

Fresh coast film festival is a film festival organization celebrating the outdoor lifestyle, water-rich environment and resilient spirit of the great lakes and upper midwest. The festival will gather the best in environmental and cultural filmmaking from around the world while creating a venue for, and building a culture of, great lakes storytelling. The festival will be held annually in october during the height of fall color season in marquette, Michigan and hold a variety of programming celebrating the environment and great lakes culture, offering both free and ticketed events and programs over the event's weekend, as well as throughout the year. For participants, volunteers, filmmakers, and students fresh coast will mean an opportunity to interact with environmental thinkers, outdoors athletes and media professionals working in the outdoors industry. A key component of the fresh coast experience will be guided outdoor activities to introduce visitors to the outdoor playground of th

What it reported doing in 2025

The 2025 fresh coast film festival occurred october 16-19, 2025. During the event, we showed 91 films that celebrate the natural resources, beauty, diversity, and people of the great lakes region and beyond. We held 18 outdoors tours, had 136 artists and subjects in attendance at 13 venues with over 1500 participants in attendance throughout the festival weekend. We held our fresh coast free event on thursday night and had over 400 people in attendance. Our community impact includes an estimated 1.25 million going back to local businesses in and around marquette county.

Operating model

Revenue model
Earned-program. 83% 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 - 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: 78
  • Transparency & Controls: 82
  • Sustainability: 23
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 80.5%; rating input score 80
  • Program expense ratio: 74.9%; rating input score 75

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Limited

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -7.5%; rating input score 16; 16th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.35; rating input score 29; 29th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
  • Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 11.1% per year; rating input score 100; 61st percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 13% per year; rating input score 100; 71st percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 8.4% per year; rating input score 100; 54th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 80.5% of revenue deployed · 74.9% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: Filed governance answers
  • Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $85K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 9 people listed
  • Consistency: 6 of 6 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 2 filed schedules
  • Filing history: 5 filing years from 2019 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: Resolved incoming and outgoing counterparties from filed money flows.
  • 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.

  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 16/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 29/100.