Garden Pathways Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 770442212
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2011–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Bakersfield, CA, USA
- Phone
- 6616339133
- Rating
- 86
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Standard
- Sector
- Child Day Care
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $6,144,079
- Expenses
- $5,701,712
- Assets
- $3,844,463
- Liabilities
- $247,299
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
16 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Karen Goh (President/CEO)
Highest reported compensation
- Juan Avila (COO): $77,036 total reported compensation
- Karen Goh (President/CEO): $76,000 total reported compensation
- Mark L Rutkoskie (CFO): $3,908 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Individual and family mentoring, training and education social service programs for children, youth and adults.
What it reported doing in 2025
Comprehensive Mentoring Services- Provides mentoring and programs with life-skills improvements for underserved and underdevleoped at-risk youth and adults, including, those transitioning from welfare-to-work.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
- 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. Expenses are high relative to revenue and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 82
- Transparency & Controls: 94
- Accountability: 91
- Sustainability: 45
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 80.1%; rating input score 80
- Program expense ratio: 86.1%; rating input score 86
- Fundraising efficiency: $42.39 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 76; 76th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 93.3%; rating input score 93; 18th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 7 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 78
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 7.2%; rating input score 49; 49th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.67; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.06; rating input score 56; 56th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 2.8%; rating input score 71; 71st percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 11.2% per year; rating input score 100; 65th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 12.9% per year; rating input score 100; 74th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 16.8% per year; rating input score 100; 78th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 80.1% of revenue deployed · 86.1% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 13 of 13 board members independent · 7 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 2 filed program accomplishments · $4.9M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $77K · 16 people listed
- Consistency: 33 of 34 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 14 filing years from 2011 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 3 filed money-flow records
- 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.
Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 49/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 23/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Form 990 shared with the board not reported.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 56/100.
- High — Grant Readiness: Federal audit findings: this organization reported findings in its latest federal Single Audit.