Puget Sound Sage
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 208974030
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2016–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Seattle, WA, USA
- Phone
- 2065685000
- Rating
- 76
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Economics
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,326,559
- Expenses
- $1,333,716
- Assets
- $2,154,774
- Liabilities
- $433,810
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
6 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- CHRISTINA SHIMIZU (EXECUTIVE DI): $131,870 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Puget sound sage combines research, innovative public policy and organizing to ensure all people have an affordable place to live, a good job, a clean environment, and access to public transportation.
What it reported doing in 2024
Equitable development our equitable development work focused on 2 campaigns in 2024. Our first campaign, king county equitable development initiative (edi), led our crest coalition members in advocating to build regional infrastructure for community-driven projects outside of seattle city limits. Our team worked hard to advocate for 13,000,000 of dedicated funding at the county level to fund future edi programs. Our second campaign was working in partnership with partner organizations to organize the chinatown/international district community in working with sound transit to develop transit station alternatives and fight for culturally relevant development options and neighborhood investments. In 2024 we facilitated 3 community assemblies and 4 residential meetings, talking with hundreds of cid elders, workers and residents. We gathered community feedback through 150 completed surveys and held neighborhood walking tours to educate stakeholders.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 85% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 84% 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 fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 69
- Transparency & Controls: 90
- Accountability: 74
- Sustainability: 41
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 72.9%; rating input score 73
- Program expense ratio: 71.9%; rating input score 72
- Fundraising efficiency: $9.73 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 37; 37th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 93.3%; rating input score 93; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 99%; rating input score 99; 48th 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; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 3 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 38
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Fail
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -0.5%; rating input score 34; 34th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.62; rating input score 58; 58th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.2; rating input score 31; 31st percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 9.9%; rating input score 37; 37th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 4.5% per year; rating input score 100; 39th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 0.7% per year; rating input score 100; 17th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 11% per year; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 72.9% of revenue deployed · 71.9% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 5 board members independent · 3 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $958K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $132K · 6 people listed
- Consistency: 34 of 35 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 8 filing years from 2016 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 2 filed related-organization links
- 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.
- Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 5 of 8 not reported.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 37/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 34/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 58/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 31/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 37/100.