Lake Street Council
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 410975738
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2010–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Minneapolis, MN, USA
- Phone
- 6128220232
- Rating
- 78
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Community, Neighborhood Development
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $2,300,129
- Expenses
- $2,136,397
- Assets
- $4,378,569
- Liabilities
- $254,847
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
19 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Baba Letang (President)
- Vicki Karr (Vice President/Secratary)
- Allison Sharkey (Executive Director)
Highest reported compensation
- Allison Sharkey (Executive Director): $120,500 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Lake Street Council engages, serves, and advocates for the Lake Street business community in Minneapolis to ensure the vitality and prosperity of the commercial corridor. The Lake Street Council fosters economic vitality and amplifies Lake Street's vibrancy to create a thriving and livable commercial corridor.
What it reported doing in 2024
We Love Lake Street (WLLA) Recovery Fund: In late May 2020, civil unrest erupted in the Lake Street corridor. More than 400 businesses were looted, damaged, or destroyed by fire in the aftermath. The events that unfolded during those weeks have had a deep and lasting impact on Lake Street. The broader community came together to support these impacted businesses, and the WLLS recovery fund raised more than $12 million dollars in a matter of weeks. The purpose of the WLLS recovery fund is to support the recovery of businesses and nonprofit organizations in the Lake Street corridor. To facilitate the distribution of funds, we created the WLLS recovery fund oversight committee (the "oversight committee"), which includes local leaders with a history of supporting Lake Street's diverse business community. The oversight committee was charged with making decisions about funding priorities and guidelines. The oversight committee's subcommittees decided who received funding and in what amount. In 2024 this fund continued to invest in grants and forgivable loans to displaced businesses that were seeking to reopen, to entrepreneurs who owned demolished properties who were seeking predevelopment support to start the process of rebuilding, and to community nonprofits that sought to redevelop demolished property to provide affordable commercial space for local small businesses.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 77% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 61% for direct work, and 39% for grants.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and a large share of available resources goes toward mission work. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 63
- Transparency & Controls: 84
- Accountability: 100
- Sustainability: 59
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 64.6%; rating input score 65
- Program expense ratio: 67.9%; rating input score 68
- Fundraising efficiency: $9.59 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 36; 36th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 93.8%; rating input score 94; 20th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 74.6%; rating input score 75; 20th 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: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 7.1%; rating input score 56; 56th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.05; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.06; rating input score 68; 68th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 5.6%; rating input score 49; 49th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 12.7% per year; rating input score 100; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 11.1% per year; rating input score 100; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 16.6% per year; rating input score 100; 78th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 64.6% of revenue deployed · 67.9% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 18 of 18 board members independent · 8 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 6 filed program accomplishments · $1.5M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $120K · 19 people listed
- Consistency: 35 of 36 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 11 filing years from 2010 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 27 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 25 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 — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 36/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 56/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 49/100.