Metabrainz Foundation Inc

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
201644586
IRS 990 coverage
2011–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2010
Location
Covina, CA, USA
Phone
8054590815
Rating
64
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Scholarships, Student Financial Aid Services, Awards

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$523,888
Expenses
$477,865
Assets
$410,789
Liabilities
$0

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

Leadership & pay

8 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • ROBERT KAYE (PRESIDENT/EXEC DIRECTOR)

Highest reported compensation

  • ROBERT KAYE (PRESIDENT/EXEC DIRECTOR): $100,916 total reported compensation
  • NICOLAS TAMARGO DE EGUREN (SECRETARY): $31,757 total reported compensation

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

Overview

Mission

Support and development of the musicbrainz and related projects, in which user contributed data and other creative works are made available to the general public for free.

What it reported doing in 2025

The metabrainz foundation creates and maintains open source/open data projects such as musicbrainz, listenbrainz and bookbrainz. Musicbrainz is essentially the wikipedia for music, where volunteers provide the information on music from all around the world. Bookbrainzis a similar project but for print media and books. The listenbrainz project collects user listening profiles with the goal of creating open recommendation engines for public use. This data is collected and made available for commercial use to anyone who wishes to support theoperation of the foundation.

Operating model

Revenue model
Earned-program. 82% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
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

SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and program spending has grown recently. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and the filing does not identify recipients for some grant dollars.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 70
  • Transparency & Controls: 55
  • Accountability: 58
  • Sustainability: 48
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 75.6%; rating input score 76
  • Program expense ratio: 84%; rating input score 84
  • Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Scored; rating input score 0
  • Grant itemization coverage: Scored; rating input score 0
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 75%; rating input score 75; 19th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 3 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 33
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Fail
    • Document-retention policy: Fail
    • CEO compensation review process: Fail
    • 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: 8.8%; rating input score 54; 54th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.86; rating input score 39; 39th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 88; 88th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 27.8%; rating input score 9; 9th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 6.7% per year; rating input score 100; 45th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 6.1% per year; rating input score 100; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 10.9% per year; rating input score 100; 58th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 75.6% of revenue deployed · 84% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 6 of 8 board members independent · 3 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $401K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $101K · 8 people listed
  • Consistency: 19 of 19 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors and foreign activity
  • Filing history: 15 filing years from 2011 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 3 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: Foreign activity oversight scored 0/100.
  • High — Transparency & Controls: Grant itemization coverage scored 0/100.
  • Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 5 of 8 not reported.
  • Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 54/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 39/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 9/100.