Greater Gig Harbor Foundation
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 432104829
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2010–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Gig Harbor, WA, USA
- Phone
- 2535146338
- Rating
- 83
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Parks and Playgrounds
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $2,167,426
- Expenses
- $2,066,147
- Assets
- $2,430,938
- Liabilities
- $1,312,954
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
14 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Julie Ann Gustanski (Board Member/CEO)
- Jud Morris (President)
Highest reported compensation
- Ariel Gustanski (Chief Operating Officer): $68,952 total reported compensation
- Toni Gillespie (Office Administrator): $47,325 total reported compensation
- Odette Alina (Director, Curious By Nature School): $44,458 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The Greater Gig Harbor Foundation is a strategic community partner dedicated to strengthening the greater Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula region. GGHF brings people and resources together-leveraging research, expertise, partnerships, volunteers, grantmaking, and direct services to help address opportunity gaps and meet diverse community needs. GGHF works collaboratively across five core areas: arts and culture, education, parks and environment, recreation, and social capital. Since its founding in 2006, GGHF has invested more than $21.5M into the community, benefiting over 50 organizations and public agencies through grants, supporting more than 600 students with education scholarships, directing more than $2.8M toward hunger relief, over $6M for early childhood education, $3.35M for parks and outdoor spaces, and more than $2.5M for conservation initiatives. Through these efforts, the Foundation helps build, bridge, and enrich communities of the greater Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula area.
What it reported doing in 2024
The Greater Gig Harbor Foundation serves a regional population of more than 70,000 residents. As a community foundation, GGHF provides services and long-term stewardship of charitable funds to meet diverse community needs, and it acts as fiscal sponsor for numerous donor-directed funds, projects, and scholarship programs aligned with the Foundation's mission. In 2024, Foundation staff contributed more than 55,000 program hours, and more than 650 community volunteers provided an additional 38,000 volunteer hours across all GGHF initiatives. The Foundation raised over $250,000 to support local nonprofit organizations, community projects, public programming, grants, scholarships, and direct assistance. Signature fundraising and community engagement events supporting the Foundation's five core program areas included Cider Swig, Shamrock'n the Harbor, INDULGE, Students of Distinction, Gig Harbor Basket Brigade, The Community Table, #CommunityHarvest, and The Green Gig. GGHF also continued to support Pierce County, Washington State Parks, the City of Gig Harbor, and local park districts through its EnviroCorps program-now in its 20th year-which provides structured opportunities for volunteers to help maintain beaches, parks, trails, roadways, and public lands. In 2024, EnviroCorps volunteers contributed more than 13,000 hours, collected over 2,300 bags of litter and 100 bags of recyclables, conducted 140 hours of Litter Patrol, and provided 150 hours of direct service to community agencies. EnviroCorps maintained 22 road sections throughout Gig Harbor and the greater peninsula region and assisted with multiple remote-area cleanups involving abandoned machinery, appliances, garbage, and tires, improving public safety and environmental health. The Foundation also advanced work on plans for a permanent community center that will house a senior center, an event space, and an environmental learning center designed to meet the region's growing and diverse needs.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 70% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 96% 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. The filing does not identify recipients for some grant dollars and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 86
- Transparency & Controls: 72
- Accountability: 100
- Sustainability: 41
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 95.5%; rating input score 95
- Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100
- Fundraising efficiency: Limited
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 86.7%; rating input score 87; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 43.7%; rating input score 44; 14th 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; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 8 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 4.7%; rating input score 50; 50th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.18; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.54; rating input score 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 11.5%; rating input score 26; 26th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 23.7% per year; rating input score 100; 88th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 17.6% per year; rating input score 100; 86th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 15.9% per year; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 95.5% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 11 of 11 board members independent · 8 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 9 filed program accomplishments · $2.1M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $69K · 14 people listed
- Consistency: 40 of 42 current checks pass · 2 findings to review
- Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 11 filing years from 2010 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 6 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 2 filed related-organization links
- 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.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Grant itemization coverage scored 44/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 50/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 43/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 19/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 26/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.