Next Steps Liaison Project
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 820734798
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2019–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2018
- Location
- Mill Valley, CA, USA
- Phone
- 4154885094
- Rating
- 93
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Youth Centers, Clubs
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $55,549
- Expenses
- $63,899
- Assets
- $16,126
- Liabilities
- $4,810
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Marney Tenney (President)
People named in this filing
- Lisa Lan (Director)
- Marney Tenney (President)
- Devon Preston (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
Connecting court-involved youth to their internal power.
What it reported doing in 2025
Next Steps Liaison Project harnesses the powerful combination of connection and opportunity to intercept the re-incarceration cycle that for too many youth, results in an adolescence spent in and out of detention. In the current Juvenile Justice System, positive relationship formed with staff inside Juvenile Hall are consistently severed upon youth's release. Next Steps Liaison Project's innovative program design creates a rare opportunity for youth to stay in connection with a positive adult after release from detention. Our first touch point with youth is through our three programs emotional literacy classes, organic gardening and one on one mentoring inside Juvenile Hall that teach invaluable skills needed for success on the outside. Emotional Literacy classes, using the Power Source curriculum by Robin and Beth Casarjian, is an evidence-based, trauma informed social and emotional learning SEL program written specifically for court-involved youth. Garden classes provide the healing power of time spent in nature, proven to reduce stress and anxiety and increase overall wellbeing. Next Steps believes that continued connection and a bridge to opportunity upon re-entry to the community is what youth on probation need most to break the reincarceration cycle. We funnel youth directly from our programs in juvenile hall into paid internships and a variety of re-entry services and track them for two years. In 2025, a total of 129 court-involved youth were served in our Marin and San Francisco programs. We expanded re-entry services to include: *Paid Community Garden Internships *Garden from Home Internships *Support getting a driver's license *Pre-employment stipends *Providing English as A Second Language classes *Support with employment search and job applications We also launched new internships by partnering with local garden centers. The garden centers provide job training and site supervision to a youth on probation who is paid by Next Steps Liaison Project. We continue to serve 100 youth and 15 youth in our re-entry programs.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent revenue detail to tell how this nonprofit funds its work.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 93% 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. Expenses are high relative to revenue and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 96
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 26
- Growth: 80
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 89.2%; rating input score 89
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: -15%; rating input score 25; 25th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.25; rating input score 21; 21st percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.3; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 56; 56th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 6% per year; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 2.3% per year; rating input score 100; 59th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -16.6% per year; rating input score 0; 12th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 89.2% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $57K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 5 people listed
- Consistency: 8 of 8 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 7 filing years from 2019 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: Resolved incoming and outgoing counterparties from filed money flows.
- 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.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 25/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 21/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 10/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 56/100.