Michael's Daughter Foundation
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 825206042
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2023–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2022, Form 990-N 2021
- Location
- Newhall, CA, USA
- Phone
- 3479897654
- Rating
- 80
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Youth Development N.E.C.
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,193,152
- Expenses
- $969,640
- Assets
- $485,335
- Liabilities
- $60,881
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
8 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- CIERA PAYTON (PRESIDENT)
Highest reported compensation
- CIERA PAYTON (PRESIDENT): $81,707 total reported compensation
- TYRONE DAVIS (FORMER TREASURER): $41,048 total reported compensation
- CHARISE SOWELLS (FORMER SECRETARY): $27,200 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The michael's daughter foundation provides free and low-cost arts education programs for under-resourced communities, youth of incarcerated loved ones, and system-impacted youth using creative expression to inspire healing, confidence, and new possibilities.
What it reported doing in 2025
In 2025, we renamed our flagship filmmaking workshop to "dream forward " arts in residency to better reflect our mission to inspire young people to dream forward toward brighter, self-determined futures. We expanded our reach to six program sites across los padrinos juvenile hall, barry j. Nidorf secure youth track facility, and camp kilpatrick in malibu, as well as three school sites including carson high steam school, girls athletic leadership school los angeles, and environmental charter high school, serving 368 youth in total. We also strengthened our leadership team by hiring herminio ochoa as director of programming and expanding cayleen dixon's role to director of development and operations.on the community support front, we awarded three thomas miles scholarships, named in honor of ciera payton's late uncle, to jayda jones, estephanie martinez, and aldy hernandez, three remarkable young women with deep connections to our program. When snap benefits were cut in november, we also stepped in to provide emergency grocery assistance to two families of program participants through the brittany jones emergency grocery assistance program, named in honor of ciera's late cousin.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 99% 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 total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 81
- Transparency & Controls: 94
- Accountability: 62
- Sustainability: 47
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 73.6%; rating input score 74
- Program expense ratio: 90.6%; rating input score 91
- Fundraising efficiency: $146.02 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 88; 88th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 78th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 83.3%; rating input score 83; 22nd 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: 18.7%; rating input score 71; 71st percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.5; rating input score 25; 25th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.13; rating input score 32; 32nd percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 15.5%; rating input score 24; 24th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 63.2% per year; rating input score 100; 96th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 67.8% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 68.3% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 73.6% of revenue deployed · 90.6% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 6 board members independent · 3 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $878K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $82K · 8 people listed
- Consistency: 24 of 24 current checks pass
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 3 filing years from 2023 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.
- Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 5 of 8 not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 25/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 24/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 32/100.