Project Curate
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 473395538
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2016–2024
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Houston, TX, United States
- Phone
- 3467023842
- Rating
- 77
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Religious Media, Communications
- Affiliation
- Religious (unspecified)
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $172,209
- Expenses
- $200,785
- Assets
- $31,426
- Liabilities
- $1,052
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Diane McGehee (Vice President and Treasurer)
- Gregg Taylor (Vice President and Secretary)
- Jim Bankston (Vice President and Assistant Secretary)
Highest reported compensation
- Matthew H Russell (Chairman of the Board): $53,542 total reported compensation
- Cleve Tinsley (Co-Managing Director): $22,904 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Project Curate (PC) is a non-profit social impact agency and consultancy that works with religious, academic, and community organizations to address and support collaborative responses to intersectional racial injustice and inequality issues. It does so through curriculum development, training, design, consulting, facilitation, research, community building, and organizing, public events, and various multimedia interventions. Its mission is to foster emancipatory and liberating public and community engagement practices that move people into zones where they can dismantle barriers along the lines of class, race, sex, gender, and political orientation.
What it reported doing in 2024
Project Curate is formed to help train individuals and communities understand and respond to underlying systemic issues related to urban living. This is done through group interaction, education, workshops and seminars.Experts in the field of Sociology, Religion, and Race, Contextual Theology and Human Development teach, train and develop both content and process related to creating unity, invoking social change and creating a collaborative network across racial, ethnic and economic boundaries. This includes building partnerships with other community organizations. Our core work is around curricula development and building intellectual / social community toward justice, equity and community and civic engagement goals. Our work ultimately seeks to enact an emancipatory ethos and practice of critical public engagement that moves people into spaces where they can dismantle barriers that tend to exist along the lines of class, race, sex, gender, and political orientation. Following CURRICULA & COHORTS: Our creative curricula bring together racially, socioeconomically, and religiously diverse communities to learn competencies in solidarity and form networks of transformation across the city. PUBLIC DIALOGUES: Throughout the year, Curate organizes and hosts events around pressing social issues to engage with different publics toward building broader and deeper coalitions. MULTIMEDIA: Curate also makes interventions through blogs and podcasts, and soon through an online digital publication, all of which delves deeper into issues that link religion and race to the ongoing work of struggling for human dignity intersectional justice. In 2021 activities included development of an internet based application to support the programs. CONSULTING & TRAINING: Project Curate provides additional, in-depth contextual analysis, strategic design, and leadership training for churches, civic organizations, ecclesial councils and leaders, foundations, and academic partners. COMMUNITY & CIVIC ENGAGEMENT: We have a number of social justice advocates and community organizers on our team who work on issues of inequity, including those related to immigration, education, housing, and race. Throughout the year, we share strategies on how you can get involved at the local level or participate in Curates social incubator groups that engage in various collaborative, immersive, and relational community service projects that seek to take action on several issues.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 100% 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.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - 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: 73
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 78
- Sustainability: 15
- Growth: 80
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 75.1%; rating input score 75
- Program expense ratio: 64.4%; rating input score 64
- Fundraising efficiency: $103.89 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 86; 86th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th 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: 80%; rating input score 80; 21st percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 6 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 75
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -16.6%; rating input score 16; 16th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.16; rating input score 9; 9th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.03; rating input score 36; 36th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 38.1%; rating input score 7; 7th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 2.9% per year; rating input score 100; 44th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 0.7% per year; rating input score 100; 27th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -5.7% per year; rating input score 0; 9th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 3 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 1 operating location identified
- Where the money goes: 75.1% of revenue deployed · 64.4% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 4 of 5 board members independent · 6 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $129K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $54K · 5 people listed
- Consistency: 19 of 20 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 9 filing years from 2016 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 — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 16/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 9/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 7/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 36/100.