Iron Gate Tulsa
Legal name: Iron Gate Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 203164551
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2010–2025
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Tulsa, OK, United States
- Phone
- (918) 879-1702
- Rating
- 83
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Support N.E.C.
- Affiliation
- Christianity
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $2,711,662
- Expenses
- $2,792,525
- Assets
- $13,898,789
- Liabilities
- $13,155
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
16 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- CARRIE VESELY HENDERSON (EXECUTIVE DI): $164,114 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Iron Gate's mission is simple: We feed the hungry of Tulsa—every day. Iron Gate distributes quart-size bags of kid-friendly snacks to every youth who comes through our community meal line, and to families through our food pantry. OU Food is Medicine Partnership with Iron Gate After 18 months of planning in collaboration with the Culinary Medicine Program at the OU-TU School of Community Medicine, Iron Gate Tulsa is preparing to launch new “food as medicine” menu standards for all its prepared meal program. As Tulsa’s largest stand-alone soup kitchen, Iron Gate serves between 200-300 individuals affected by homelessness each day. Most guests are living with at least one diet-related health condition that can be exacerbated by poor nutrition.
What it reported doing in 2025
Grocery pantry iron gate is a no barrier pantry accessible to anyone in need of food assistance. Our grocery pantry program provides several services: self- select pantry (3x per week) is an in-person pantry where guests select their own groceries. Agency pantry (2x per week) is a partnership with case managers to pick-up pre-packed groceries for their clients. Homeless outreach pantry (5x per week) is an on/off-site distribution of ready-to- eat items distributed by iron gate staff and outreach case managers. In 2025, iron gate provided 66,605 households with groceries.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 86% 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.
- 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 expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 83
- Transparency & Controls: 79
- Accountability: 95
- Sustainability: 49
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 89%; rating input score 89
- Program expense ratio: 84.4%; rating input score 84
- Fundraising efficiency: $13.85 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 47; 47th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Pass
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Pass
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- 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 8 controls in place; rating input score 88
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -3%; rating input score 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 4.98; rating input score 81; 81st percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 88; 88th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 5.9%; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 9.7% per year; rating input score 100; 60th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 7.2% per year; rating input score 100; 53rd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 16% per year; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 2 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 1 operating location identified
- Where the money goes: 89% of revenue deployed · 84.4% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 15 of 15 board members independent · 7 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $2.4M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $164K · 16 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 30 of 30 current checks pass
- Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors and executive pay
- Filing history: 15 filing years from 2010 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
- 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.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 47/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 19/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
- Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 51/100.