Garage Script

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
823129102
IRS 990 coverage
2023–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2022, Form 990-N 2017
Location
Berkeley, CA, USA
Phone
3102707868
Rating
82
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Job Training

Reported finances

Revenue
$88,124
Expenses
$80,067
Assets
$8,057
Liabilities
$0

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

Leadership & pay

4 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Yinghua Gao (President/Chief Executive Officer)

People named in this filing

  • Yinghua Gao (President/Chief Executive Officer)
  • Rong Zheng (Secretary)
  • James Lim (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. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

Garage Script is a non-profit public benefit organization dedicated to connecting, helping and training underserved people who are pursuing new career, career change, or career enhancements in the software development industry and working with them to further develop their technical skills as well as soft skills and knowledge that employers seek in their employees.

What it reported doing in 2025

In 2025, a total of 1,005 students were enrolled in our online coding curriculum ( https://www.c0d3.com ) which consists of 9 foundation tracks. These students will be spending between 10 to 18 months to complete all the 9 foundation tracks. In 2025, 10 students completed our coding curriculum and were employed by various companies and they were earning salaries of at least $100,000 per year. The remaining students will continue to learn in 2026 at various stages of the curriculum. These students also used their newly acquired skills and knowledge to build industry standard components for our foundation tracks. In addition, we have 15 volunteers mentoring and guiding new students and they have donated nearly 3,500 volunteer hours of service to the organization. The value of the donated time is estimated to be over $175,000 (3500 x 50). Furthermore, due to Covid-19 restrictions, we have developed the YouTube version of the coding curriculum where students can follow the 9 foundation tracks through the video version on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWJ7Gw_fL6QT6aEszp1agtA/videos ). We also have the chat room on Discord.com where students can seek help by posting their questions and someone will assist them. Additionally, the organization also provided financial assistance to low- or no-income students while they are learning how to code. This financial assistance totaling $23,625.00 helped these students to pay for their rents and living expenses. In 2025, the organization did not provide any reimbursements to expenses incurred by volunteers. To date, the organization has helped 10 low- or no-income people to be gainfully employed in the software development industry. The organization will continue to raise more funds so that more low- or no-income people can be retrained to be software engineers. 3 initiatives were implemented between 2020 and 2025; we improved and added more functionality to our initiatives. Initiative 1: Online self-paced modules: The years 2019 through 2025 saw the completion of our structured online curriculum at https://c0d3.com. Based on the student's learning and interviewing experiences, we have established a comprehensive learning curriculum to properly structure the student's learning process. 160 students have enrolled and completed various levels of the online curriculum. 15 students who had completed our new curriculum were offered full-time jobs in 2025. Initiative 2: Open-Source Initiative: The establishment of our open-source initiatives to teach engineering standards and to provide students with the opportunities to master the best practices in the industry and make an impact in their skills (https://github.com/garageScript). One Open-source project (MyProxy) was launched in 2019. Blog post was written by a student. Initiative 3: Local Community Support: In late 2019, we also established a working relationship with our local city public library (San Jose Public Library) and started a daily meetup group at the library for providing a physical presence for our local community who needs help. In every meeting, we have consistently about 5-8 students showing up to learn. However, in late December 2019, due to COVID-19, we had to put a pause on our library presence. Since then, we have been focusing on building a stronger online community support. Our working relationship with the public library will resume after the lifting of COVID-19 shelter in place order by the city. Our online curriculum on c0d3.com was launched for external students to join and provided a platform for our volunteers to engage with more students who need guidance. Initiative 4: Video version of self-paced modules: In 2020, the video version of our structured online curriculum was created and launched on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWJ7Gw_fL6QT6aEszp1agtA/videos ). This version allows students to follow the instructions and lessons on YouTube. Students can rewind and repeat any parts of the lessons pre

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 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

STRONG - 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 revenue has declined or grown slowly.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 84
  • Transparency & Controls: 90
  • Accountability: 88
  • Sustainability: 46
  • Growth: 40

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 90.9%; rating input score 91
  • Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd 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: 5 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 71
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • 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: Fail
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 9.1%; rating input score 61; 61st percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.1; rating input score 10; 10th 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: 2.6% per year; rating input score 100; 56th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: -5.8% per year; rating input score 0; 39th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: -28.9% per year; rating input score 0; 5th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 90.9% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 3 of 3 board members independent · 5 of 7 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $80K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 4 people listed
  • Consistency: 16 of 16 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 2 filed schedules
  • Filing history: 3 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.

  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 7 not reported.
  • High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 10/100.
  • High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
  • Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 58/100.