Planting Justice
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 270334905
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2015–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-N 2009
- Location
- Oakland, CA, USA
- Phone
- 5107566965
- Rating
- 79
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Garden Club, Horticultural Program
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $6,005,233
- Expenses
- $5,179,170
- Assets
- $6,056,992
- Liabilities
- $1,117,662
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
18 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Salvador Mateo (CEO)
- Lynn Vidal (President)
- Zandi Haleh (President)
Highest reported compensation
- Raders Gavin (Director): $106,687 total reported compensation
- Salvador Mateo (CEO): $95,742 total reported compensation
- Chahrour Andrew (Director): $77,365 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Planting Justice is democratizing access to affordable, nutritious food by empowering disenfranchised urban residents with the skills, resources, and inspiration to maximize food production, economic opportunities, and environmental sustainability in our neighborhoods.
What it reported doing in 2024
Aquaponics Farm. Planting Justice acquired the historic Neishi Brothers Nursery site at 359 105th Avenue just down the block from PJ nursery, which has been vacant for 15 yrs, as the site for its Aquaponics Incubator Farm. With support from UC Davis Aquaponics program, PJ will build an educational aquaponics farm that is estimated to produce 170,000 lbs of certified organic vegetables herbs and over 150,000 nursery starts, each year, in a community that currently has zero access to organic, affordable produce. Like PJ nursery, this farm will be led by long-term residents in deep East Oakland with barriers to employment, and as an educational incubator farm, its goal is to create a replicable and scalable model for sustainable organic food production, economic justice, re-entry job creation, frontline BIPOC leadership, and cooperative land business ownership in Environmental Justice communities. Upon completion, PJ will open-source its technology and model to support a Producers Cooperative that can replicate this project on empty lots throughout East Oakland, owned and operated by long-term residents most impacted by economic social injustice. This farm is projected to create approximately at least 12 full-time living-wage benfitted jobs for formerly incarcerated youth and adults, recent immigrants, and others with barriers to employment, while serving as an educational center that will serve over 1,000 youth and adults per year with hands-on learning in sustainable urban agriculture.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 81% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 97% 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
SUPPORTED - 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: 79
- Transparency & Controls: 88
- Accountability: 68
- Sustainability: 55
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 77.2%; rating input score 77
- Program expense ratio: 83.7%; rating input score 84
- Fundraising efficiency: $32.64 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 71; 71st percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 92.3%; rating input score 92; 10th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 97.4%; rating input score 97; 33rd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 61.1%; rating input score 61; 10th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 7 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 78
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- 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: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 13.8%; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.17; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.18; rating input score 46; 46th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 7%; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 12% per year; rating input score 100; 70th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 14.7% per year; rating input score 100; 81st percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 23.1% per year; rating input score 100; 88th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 77.2% of revenue deployed · 83.7% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 11 of 18 board members independent · 7 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 10 filed program accomplishments · $4.3M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $107K · 18 people listed
- Consistency: 33 of 34 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 9 filing years from 2015 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 7 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 1 filed related-organization link
- 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.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 9 not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 42/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 42/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 46/100.