Public Dialogue Consortium
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 911874534
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2021–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-N 2010
- Location
- San Jose, CA, USA
- Phone
- 8888788591
- Rating
- 65
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Community Coalitions
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $20,850
- Expenses
- $23,271
- Assets
- $50,554
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
2 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Shawn Spano (President)
Highest reported compensation
- Shawn Spano (President): $19,017 total reported compensation
- Jennifer Mair (Treasurer): $1,460 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The PDC specializes in designing processes and facilitating events that enable candid expression and open listening to enhance and improve the quality of public communication among stakeholders in government and non-profit organizations.
What it reported doing in 2025
City of San Jose: Facilitation and professional coaching services include executive coaching, staff retreats, and staff training.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 100% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- 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. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and program spending has declined or grown slowly.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 84
- Transparency & Controls: 90
- Accountability: 9
- Sustainability: 38
- Growth: 20
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 98.2%; rating input score 98
- Program expense ratio: 88%; rating input score 88
- Fundraising efficiency: Limited
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: Limited
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: Limited
- Governance controls: 2 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 22
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Fail
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Fail
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -11.6%; rating input score 40; 40th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.17; rating input score 39; 39th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 88%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: -53.8% per year; rating input score 0; 6th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -54.2% per year; rating input score 0; 8th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 3.4% per year; rating input score 100; 55th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 98.2% of revenue deployed · 88% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 2 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $20K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $19K · 2 people listed
- Consistency: 15 of 15 current checks pass
- Schedules: 2 filed schedules
- Filing history: 5 filing years from 2021 to 2025
- 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.
Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.
- High — Accountability: Governance controls: 6 of 8 not reported.
- High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 40/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 39/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 1/100.
- High — Grant Readiness: California registration: this organization is not authorized to operate as a charity in California.