Game Devs of Color
Legal name: Game Devs of Color Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 863432002
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2022–2025
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-N 2021
- Location
- Brooklyn, NY, USA
- Phone
- 6466279961
- Rating
- 64
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Youth Development - Business
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $182,026
- Expenses
- $244,787
- Assets
- $2,116
- Liabilities
- $37,789
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
4 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- CATHERINE SMALL (PRESIDENT)
Highest reported compensation
- BRIAN S CHUNG (SECRETARY): $20,676 total reported compensation
- BRIAN CARR (MEMBER): $693 total reported compensation
- GYONGJU LEE (TREASURER): $208 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Our mission is to amplify the creative power held by people of color in games. We do this by organizing revolutionary events, uniting our vibrant community, and building access to knowledge, funding, and opportunities.
What it reported doing in 2025
Ran a 4-day festival to celebrate creators of color in games featuring 79 speakers across 52 panels, talks, and game dev interviews. 1159 total attendees. Awarded $105,000 in development funding to 5 recipients. Job listings posted: 41, visitors to job board during the event: 1800. Our online games showcase and sale, gradient convergence, featured a curation of over 70 games to over 600,000 visitors. No fee for developers to apply or participate. Provided 15 game developers with an all access pass to the game developers conference (valued $1699)
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 100% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 83% 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. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and the filing does not identify recipients for some grant dollars.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 71
- Transparency & Controls: 72
- Accountability: 68
- Sustainability: 7
- Growth: 0
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 87.8%; rating input score 88
- Program expense ratio: 65.3%; rating input score 65
- Fundraising efficiency: Limited
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 83.3%; rating input score 83; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 50%; rating input score 50; 45th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 2 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 22
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Fail
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: Fail
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Fail
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -34.5%; rating input score 7; 7th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.01; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 17.86; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 8.9%; rating input score 28; 28th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: -16% per year; rating input score 0; 7th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -41.8% per year; rating input score 0; 1st percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -70.4% per year; rating input score 0; 1st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 6 programs and campaigns described on the official site
- Where the money goes: 87.8% of revenue deployed · 65.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 4 of 4 board members independent · 2 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $160K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $21K · 4 people listed
- Consistency: 25 of 27 current checks pass · 2 findings to review
- Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2022 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 6 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.
- High — Accountability: Governance controls: 7 of 9 not reported.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Grant itemization coverage scored 50/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 7/100.
- High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 2/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Foreign grants require schedule f did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 28/100.