Jewish Scholastic Press Association
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 471628449
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2023–2024
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2022, Form 990-N 2021
- Location
- Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Phone
- 3108922519
- Rating
- 69
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Educational Services and Schools - Other
- Affiliation
- Judaism
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $20,434
- Expenses
- $176,637
- Assets
- $94,379
- Liabilities
- $20,841
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- JOELLE KEENE (PRESIDENT)
Highest reported compensation
- JOELLE KEENE (PRESIDENT): $58,125 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Bringing Jewish values and professionalism to high school journalism by developing student-led news media in Jewish high schools and providing a Jewish ethical perspective on journalism for student journalists anywhere. Support JSPA Thank you for making us part of your giving! JSPA relies almost entirely on grants and donations to fund its work, helping to develop student-led news media in Jewish high schools and providing a Jewish ethical perspective on journalism to student journalists anywhere. Your contribution supports these goals. Click here to donate now. And thank you in advance! [](.
What it reported doing in 2024
Jewish scholastic journalism awards - contest received submissions from students in 18 public, private, and both jewish and christian parochial schools, awarded prizes (including certificates and plaques) across 12 categories of news, features, first-person and editorial opinion, along with video, photojournalism and page design, all pertaining to jewish- and israel-related topics. Conferences: jspa attended and hosted sponsorship booths at nspa's national scholastic journalism conventions in philadelphia.(fall) and seattle (spring), each with more than 5,000 high school student and adviser attendees, where we hosted one-on-one table-visit discussions with students at the convention concerning challenges they are experiencing in their newsrooms. Annual jewish scholastic journalism conference. Jspa also held its own annual jewish scholastic journalism conference in los angeles -- three days of workshops, networking and inspiration for high school journalists attended by students and advisers from jewish schools in memphis, los angeles and atlanta. Featured speakers included jennifer medina, national political correspondent for the New York times; ami eden, editor and ceo of 70 faces media, and award-winning photojournalist jackson krule.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 74% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 93% 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
SUPPORTED - 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 fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 77
- Transparency & Controls: 62
- Accountability: 78
- Sustainability: 11
- Growth: 60
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 61.4%; rating input score 61
- Fundraising efficiency: $0.42 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 90.9%; rating input score 91; 18th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 13.6%; rating input score 14; 41st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Limited
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 80%; rating input score 80; 25th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 6 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 75
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- 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: -764.4%; rating input score 6; 6th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.53; rating input score 17; 17th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.22; rating input score 15; 15th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 32.9%; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 96% per year; rating input score 100; 98th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -5.1% per year; rating input score 0; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 20.2% per year; rating input score 100; 91st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: Mission, programs, and operating context captured from the official website.
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 61.4% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 4 of 5 board members independent · 6 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $108K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $58K · 5 people listed
- Consistency: 25 of 26 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules · includes grants
- Filing history: 2 filing years from 2023 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- 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 — Transparency & Controls: Grant itemization coverage scored 14/100.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 12/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 6/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 17/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 10/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 15/100.