Marion Voices Folklife & Oral History

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN: 871408176
IRS 990-EZ coverage: 2022–2025
Forms available: Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2021
Location: Columbus, OH, USA
Rating: 89
Verdict: STRONG
Rating confidence: Moderate
Sector: Arts, Cultural Organizations - Multipurpose

Reported finances

Revenue: $51,836
Expenses: $145,847
Assets: $0

Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

3 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

Ms Linda Sims (President of the Board)

People named in this filing

Jess Lamar Reece Holler (Director & Interim Treasurer)
Ms Linda Sims (President of the Board)
Micah Walker (Secretary)

Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.

Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

Marion Voices Folklife + Oral History -- Marion Countys countywide folklife cultural arts & heritage organization -- existed to collaborate with our North-Central Ohio community to 1 amplify diverse folklife traditions & cultural arts heritages across Marion County in collaboration with culture-keepers & tradition bearers; 2 build expanded livelihoods for Marion County folk traditional & cultural artists & memory-keepers through arts-based economic development opportunities paid performance teaching presentation & cultural documentation opportunities & arts-&-culture-based job creation; & 3 collaboratively curate folklife & cultural arts programming to build critical reparative pride-in-place in Marion County ... towards more just abundant futures for all. FY2025 marked Marion Voices final operational year as future funding sources were decimated due to the DOGE cancellation of NEA grants to a major multi-year program line plus unrelated changes in state funding.

What it reported doing in 2025

Marion County North-Central Ohio Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project CHAMP & Countywide Arts Survey -- Marion Voices CHAMP project was Marion Voices major program service for FY2025. Unfortunately the project was also impacted by the cancellation of a major two-year National Endowment for the Arts Grant due to DOGE cuts in May 2025 and had to be halted after May 2026 with remaining funds from other funding partners returned back. See "grants." Following on FY2024s Marion County Cultural Heritage Mapping Project -- the first half of the project -- FY2025s activities included the planning and partial execution of a planned 12-county folklife outreach and networking tour. Funds were suspended in the midst of fieldwork launch; a 12-county folklife survey was completed but individual county mapping sessions were not completed and remaining funds were returned to the funder the America-250 Ohio Commission via fiscal sponsor the Ohio History Connection and under advisory from administrators Ohio Humanities. Payments were also paid out to some project contractors in FY2025 for work begun in FY2024. NOTE: FY2025 program expenses grants may appear unbalanced due to cross-fiscal year begin & end of project grant disbursement schedule for some major program grants.

Operating model

Revenue model: Donor-supported. 100% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
Distribution model: Direct operator. The filing allocates 89% 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 filed totals do not add up and expenses are high relative to revenue.

Rating breakdown

Financial Efficiency: 94
Transparency & Controls: 100
Sustainability: 3
Growth: 40

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
Program expense ratio: 82.6%; rating input score 83

Transparency & Controls

Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100

Sustainability

Operating margin: -181.4%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
Total-asset coverage ratio: 0; rating input score 3; 3rd percentile among comparable filings
Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
Officer compensation ratio: 76.3%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings

Growth

Program expense growth: 10.5% per year; rating input score 100; 71st percentile among comparable filings
Revenue growth: -9.8% per year; rating input score 0; 25th percentile among comparable filings
Asset growth: -7.8% per year; rating input score 0; 20th percentile among comparable filings

Details

Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 82.6% of spending went to programs
Governance: Filed governance answers
Accomplishments: 3 filed program accomplishments · $121K in reported program spending
Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 3 people listed
Consistency: 7 of 8 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
Schedules: 4 filed schedules
Filing history: 4 filing years from 2022 to 2025
Contacts: How to reach this organization
Money network: 4 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.

Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Part I part ii net assets crosscheck did not reconcile in the filed values.
High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 5/100.
High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 3/100.
High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 1/100.