Pisgah Legal Services

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
561191115
IRS 990 coverage
2010–2024
Forms available
Form 990 2024
Location
Asheville, NC, USA
Phone
8282530406
Rating
77
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Human Services

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$18,079,853
Expenses
$13,202,682
Assets
$15,146,841
Liabilities
$820,742

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

28 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • JOHN NOOR (PRESIDENT)

Highest reported compensation

  • JACLYN KIGER (EXECUTIVE DI): $182,605 total reported compensation
  • SHANNON ADAMS (CFO): $159,207 total reported compensation
  • ROBIN MERRELL (EMPLOYEE): $151,691 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

Pisgah legal services pursues justice to improve lives for low-income people in western North Carolina through legal assistance and advocacy. Pisgah legal services envisions a community where all people have access to civil legal assistance when they need it to protect their basic rights and secure essentials, such as housing, health care, income, and safety from abuse. We envision a community with policies and services in place that reduce poverty and ease the burdens of poverty on our neighbors. The organization tracked 35 million in quantifiable benefits secured for its clients in 2024, although many legal outcomes cannot be valued in dollars, such as escaping from domestic violence or homelessness. More than 25,800 people were served at no charge. The organization played a vital role in immediate tropical storm helene recovery efforts and will contine to do so in the future .

What it reported doing in 2024

- legal services to the poor: helps low-income individuals address consumer protection issues, income shortfalls, and manage their limited resources. This work includes helping restore drivers' licenses and expunge criminal records so that people can increase their incomes. - elder law: helps seniors live independently in their homes as long as possible. Protects seniors from financial or physical abuse or harassment and assists with end-of-life planning. 2024 expenditures: 413,609. - children's law project: helps disadvantaged children avoid homelessness, access essential services such as medical care and public education, and escape situations of abuse. 2024 expenditures: 348,686. - benefits law: obtains and protects public benefits for low-income people, including food and nutritional services, medicaid, social security, and others. Pisgah legal assists medicaid beneficiaries and applicants to protect medicaid rights. 2024 expenditures: 161,138. - justice for all project: assists eligible immigrants with securing legal immigration status or work authorization and addresses other basic needs like safety and housing so that immigrants may lift themselves and their families out of poverty. This program serves 18 of the westernmost counties of North Carolina. Some immigrants are served in other programs, including domestic violence prevention. 2024 expenditures: 453,066. - volunteer lawyers/hotline: recruits and trains a network of volunteer lawyers to provide pro bono legal services to the organization's clients; cases are screened for income and case type and referred by pisgah legal services. 2024 expenditures: 496,565 (not including 554,500 donated attorney professional time). - community economic development: increases jobs and affordable housing through advocacy and technical, legal assistance to support and build capacity of nonprofits, faith groups, small businesses and local governments. 2024 expenditures: 213,638. - low-income taxpayer clinic (litc): the litc program provides legal assistance in tax disputes with the IRS, community tax education and systemic advocacy to low-income taxpayers in eighteen counties in wnc. - North Carolina medicaid ombudsman (ncmo): in partnership with the charlotte center for legal advocacy and legal aid of nc, the ncmo program provides support to medicaid managed care beneficiaries and communications with the state regarding issues learned from medicaid members. All amounts above are adjusted to remove the value of donated services not reported as income on form 990.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 83% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
Distribution model
Direct operator. The filing allocates 98% 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

SUPPORTED - 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 some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 65
  • Transparency & Controls: 79
  • Accountability: 95
  • Sustainability: 66
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 60%; rating input score 60
  • Program expense ratio: 81.5%; rating input score 81
  • Fundraising efficiency: $12.81 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 45; 45th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: 2 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 33
    • Compensation committee: Missing
    • Independent consultant: Missing
    • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
    • Written employment contract: Missing
    • Compensation survey or study: Pass
    • Board or committee approval: Pass
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 66th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 7 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 88
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Other executive compensation review process: Fail
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 27%; rating input score 87; 87th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.15; rating input score 41; 41st percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.05; rating input score 82; 82nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 8.9%; rating input score 25; 25th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 15.9% per year; rating input score 100; 85th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 14.2% per year; rating input score 100; 85th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 5.7% per year; rating input score 100; 40th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 60% of revenue deployed · 81.5% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 20 of 20 board members independent · 7 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $10.8M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $183K · 28 people listed · 2 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Consistency: 38 of 38 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
  • Filing history: 14 filing years from 2010 to 2024
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 8 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.
  • Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

  • Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 45/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 41/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 25/100.