Northwest Documentary Arts & Media
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 510458157
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2012–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2019, Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- Portland, OR, USA
- Rating
- 85
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Film, Video
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $189,187
- Expenses
- $230,758
- Assets
- $37,303
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
3 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Sam Gaty (President Secretary ED)
- Nora Colie (Vice President)
People named in this filing
- Sam Gaty (President Secretary ED)
- Nora Colie (Vice President)
- Jesus Contreras (Treasurer)
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
NW Documentary cultivates regional capacity for nonfiction storytelling and documentary filmmaking through education project support access to equipment and a welcoming community helping storytellers develop their craft finish projects and find their audience.
What it reported doing in 2025
Access to Digital Production Tools Equipment and Software
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 81% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 73% for direct work, and 27% for grants.
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 program spending has declined or grown slowly.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 89
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 10
- Growth: 0
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 95.5%; rating input score 96
- Program expense ratio: 78.3%; rating input score 78
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -22%; rating input score 6; 6th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.16; rating input score 16; 16th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
- Officer compensation ratio: 12.6%; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: -1.6% per year; rating input score 0; 25th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -1.7% per year; rating input score 0; 13th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -7.2% per year; rating input score 0; 13th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 95.5% of revenue deployed · 78.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 3 filed program accomplishments · $181K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 3 people listed
- Consistency: 7 of 7 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 10 filing years from 2012 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 3 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.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 6/100.
- High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 16/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 20/100.