Ojai Festivals Ltd
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 952122508
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2011–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Ojai, CA, USA
- Phone
- 8056462094
- Rating
- 84
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Music
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $2,295,659
- Expenses
- $2,121,559
- Assets
- $3,278,138
- Liabilities
- $228,663
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
29 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- ARA GUZELIMIAN (ARTISTIC AND EXECUTIVE DIR): $125,000 total reported compensation
- GINA GUTIERREZ (MANAGING DIRECTOR): $120,205 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The ojai music festival serves as a creative music laboratory for pioneering new works, championing adventurous programming, and working with today's emerging artists with events during the year and the ojai music festival serves as a creative music laboratory for pioneering new works, championing adventurous programming, and working with today's emerging artists with events during the year and culminating with a four-day immersive experience in june in ojai, California. The festival is known for its unique structure of having the artistic director appoint a new music director each year, giving audiences the opportunity to discover a multitude of music forms. An essential part of the festival is its bravo music education & community program which offers free workships, artist residencies, and concerts for ojai's public-school students and residents.
What it reported doing in 2024
The 79th ojai music festival, june 5 to 8, 2025, welcomed the return of flutist claire chase as music director. Under chase's musical leadership, the 2025 ojai music festival celebrated collaboration and dialogue across multiple generations of composers. Among them were composers-in-residence tania leon, annea lockwood and marcos balter; composer-performers craig taborn (piano), leilehua lanzilotti (viola) and susie ibarra (percussion); music of luminaries including sofia gubaidulina and terry riley; and emerging composers including eduardo aguilar, vincent atria and bahar royaee. Together, they presented new and recent works including four world premieres, one u.s. Premiere, and eight west coast premieresin dialogue with one another, as well as with era-defining artists such as j.s. Bach, john coltrane, julius eastman and pauline oliveros. In the spirit of during the four days of the festival, there were seven main libbey bowl concerts, talks and discussions with 2025 artists and composers, films and free concerts opened to the ojai community. To ensure the festival reaches a far wider audience outside of libbey bowl, free live streaming of the mainstage concerts was made available on the festival's website as well as throughout the year along with other archived festival seasons. The festival continued providing free online offerings including the ojaicast podcast and virtual ojai talks to further engage with patrons. These sessions with 2025 festival artists gave participants an opportunity to learn about the festival repertoire and programs and enjoy music via the virtual world. The festival's celebrated bravo music education program continued to serve ojai public elementary schools with free workshops, interactive demonstrations, and concerts. During the school year, bravo served close to 3500 students. Thanks to continued funding, bravo presented its artists-in-residence program led by six local area musicians going into the classrooms. Spring programs included the imagine concert at libbey bowl for upper elementary students who enjoy a live concert with professional musicians, music van, organized by bravo volunteers, which visited eight schools allowing students to try different musical instruments, and score, a high school composition program with nordhoff high school music department. During the summer, bravo continues with two art & music camps led by bravo teachers and volunteers where children learn in an interactive environment of music, movement, and art. Another aspect of bravo is bridge where students visit local senior retirement homes and share music through songs and games with the residents.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 68% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 72
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 100
- Sustainability: 53
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 79.1%; rating input score 79
- Program expense ratio: 76.8%; rating input score 77
- Fundraising efficiency: $6.51 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 24; 24th 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: Limited
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 7.6%; rating input score 57; 57th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.55; rating input score 53; 53rd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.07; rating input score 65; 65th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 11.6%; rating input score 26; 26th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 1.4% per year; rating input score 100; 19th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 2.2% per year; rating input score 100; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 9.1% per year; rating input score 100; 55th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 79.1% of revenue deployed · 76.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 24 of 24 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $1.6M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $125K · 29 people listed
- Consistency: 32 of 32 current checks pass
- Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 12 filing years from 2011 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 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 — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 24/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 57/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 53/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 26/100.