Ground Education
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 822375504
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2020–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2019
- Location
- Long Beach, CA, USA
- Phone
- 3107465736
- Rating
- 82
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Educational Services and Schools - Other
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,336,706
- Expenses
- $1,248,760
- Assets
- $446,837
- Liabilities
- $9,573
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
11 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- GENEVIEVE MACIAS (PRESIDENT)
- HOLLAND BROWN (CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
- KAREN TAYLOR (CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
Highest reported compensation
- HOLLAND BROWN (CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $69,420 total reported compensation
- KAREN TAYLOR (CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $69,420 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Ground education offers a robust, curriculum-based transitional kindergarten-5th grade outdoor environmental education program delivered during the school day and in summer and after-school settings.
What it reported doing in 2024
Ground education partners with long beach public schools to provide year-round garden, health, and environmental awareness experiences for every student during the school day. We directly engage youth to grow the capacity for wonder, cultivate the space to think, explore, and connect, and nurture robust decision-making in the context of the natural world. During the 2024-2025 school year, we provided lessons to 15,000 elementary students in the long beach unified school district--a 15% increase from the prior year--and now have learning gardens and outdoor education programs in 58% of local elementary schools. We also mentored eight interns from csulb, and planted and maintained 32 garden sites. In our end-of-school survey, 99% of teachers reported that participating in ground education supports students' social/emotional wellbeing. While we believe every student should spend time learning outdoors, our expansion has focused on schools serving low-income families in underserved long beach neighborhoods. Learn more at www.groundeducation.org.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 63% 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 76
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 84
- Sustainability: 42
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 80.3%; rating input score 80
- Program expense ratio: 85.8%; rating input score 86
- Fundraising efficiency: $6.7 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 25; 25th percentile among comparable filings
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: 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: 5 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 62
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Fail
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 6.6%; rating input score 54; 54th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.36; rating input score 17; 17th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.02; rating input score 62; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 11.1%; rating input score 33; 33rd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 36.1% per year; rating input score 100; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 32.3% per year; rating input score 100; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 24.4% per year; rating input score 100; 86th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 80.3% of revenue deployed · 85.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 9 of 9 board members independent · 5 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $1.1M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $69K · 11 people listed
- Consistency: 26 of 26 current checks pass
- Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2020 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 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.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 25/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 7 not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 17/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 54/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 33/100.