Livable City
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 943350190
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2011–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- San Francisco, CA, USA
- Phone
- 4153440489
- Rating
- 84
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Research Institutes and Public Policy Analysis
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,631,835
- Expenses
- $2,080,898
- Assets
- $398,825
- Liabilities
- $297,327
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
13 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Michael T Nguyen (President)
Highest reported compensation
- Darin Ow-Wing (Executive Dir.): $89,827 total reported compensation
- Sally Chen (Deputy Director): $65,189 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Livable City is dedicated to increasing affordable housing, improvingtransportation, land use, open space, and environmental policies, offeringprograms which allow community use of streets, and supporting grassrootsinitiatives to make San Francisco a safer, healthier, and more accessible city.
What it reported doing in 2024
Livable Neighborhoods and Complete Streets: Livable City convened stakeholders to plan public space improvements, advocated forpolicy changes and projects which create livable and walkable 15-minute neighborhoods across San Francisco, and for policy changes and programs which fosterneighborhood-serving small businesses, services, and arts and cultural spaces, andpublic open spaces in San Francisco neighborhoods.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Grant-funded. 78% of the money available for current operations came from government grants.
- 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.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 91
- Transparency & Controls: 86
- Accountability: 79
- Sustainability: 12
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 86.6%; rating input score 87
- Fundraising efficiency: $22.09 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 61; 61st percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 92.9%; rating input score 93; 19th 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: 4 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- 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: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -27.5%; rating input score 7; 7th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.19; rating input score 9; 9th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.75; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 7.4%; rating input score 45; 45th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 16.3% per year; rating input score 100; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 13.6% per year; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 20.1% per year; rating input score 100; 82nd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 86.6% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 13 of 13 board members independent · 4 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $1.8M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $90K · 13 people listed
- Highest-paid contractors: 4 contractors listed · $1M reported
- Consistency: 22 of 23 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 13 filing years from 2011 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.
- Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 7 not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 7/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 9/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 10/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 45/100.