San Jose Children's Discovery Museum

What it reported doing in 2024

Children's discovery museum of san jose ("the museum") is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation organized in 1982 and incorporated in 1983. The museum operates a children's museum which addresses the educational needs of children, youth and their families in santa clara county through participatory exhibits and programs that engage the senses and challenge the mind.exhibitsover its 35 years of operation, the museum has welcomed more than 10.5 million visitors. During the year ended august 31, 2025, the museum provided engaging learning opportunities to over 223,800 family visitors and 24,200 in groups. An increase of 5% over the prior year, attributable to the ongoing recovery after covid and directed marketing strategies. The museum maintained a full-day schedule on weekends, holidays, and during the summer, operating from 9:30 a.m. To 4:30 p.m., and a shorter weekday schedule, tuesday through friday from 9:30 a.m. To 1:00 p.m.the majority of cdm's exhibits, which focus on children to age 10 and their parents and caregivers, are highly tactile and encourage touching, exploring, manipulating and experimenting, while cutting across the disciplines of art, science and the humanities. The wonder cabinet serves the needs of the museum's youngest visitors as an early learning environment with exhibits designed to support the cognitive, emotional and social development of infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Whether children are roleplaying a firefighter on the authentic fire engine in the streets of san jose exhibit, or using colorful plastic balls to study how water rushes and flows in waterways, they are actively engaged in learning, inspired by their own curiosity to investigate how things work and to understand more about the world in which we live. The amazing airmaze exhibit, which spans two floors inside the museum and features scarves and yarn balls moving through a series of plexiglass tubes and emerging from one of six exits, fosters predictive learning and provides great delight to museum visitors.since opening its doors in the spring of 1990, the museum and its staff have worked to enhance the visitor experience in its 28,000 square feet of indoor exhibition space with 13 dedicated galleries, each housing 8 to 10 interactive exhibits that address the distinctive need for children to learn through concrete interactions, and an adjacent outdoor exhibit space, bill's backyard, which essentially doubled the museum's exhibit space. Exhibit signage in english, spanish and vietnamese focuses visitor interactions on the uniqueness of outdoor play, such as to build, roll, climb, plant, and observe to name a few. Ten different local species of animals and insects were cast in bronze and placed appropriately throughout the area to allow children to discover them in their natural habitat. A 7,200-gallon rain-harvest system is used to irrigate the native landscape and to teach visitors about water conservation at the same time. By bringing nature to children, cdm hopes to create a spark so that children will then seek out other outdoor opportunities close to their home and become environmental stewards as they grow up.in june 2025, the museum opened bubbling up! A new, immersive bubbles exhibit, designed in conjunction with the denver children's museum's design division. The new exhibit is located outside in bill's backyard and features a high number of unique activities. In the fall, the museum presented "dinosaurs: land of fire and ice," a traveling exhibit from the Minnesota children's museum as a way to test the success of hosting a traveling exhibit during thefall/winter months as opposed to the typical summer timeframe, which has been shortened over the years due to changing school schedules. The exhibit was popular and did help to increase attendance during the months of its tenure. The museum also chose to present a new type of temporary exhibit during the winter/spring months. Potential space: a serious look at c

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 77.2%; rating input score 77
• Program expense ratio: 66%; rating input score 66
• Fundraising efficiency: $7.66 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 29; 29th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 4 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 67
  • Compensation committee: Pass
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Pass
  • Written employment contract: Missing
  • Compensation survey or study: Pass
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• 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: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -15.2%; rating input score 9; 9th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.5; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.06; rating input score 68; 68th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 20.9%; rating input score 11; 11th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: -2.1% per year; rating input score 0; 9th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: -0.8% per year; rating input score 0; 9th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 0.9% per year; rating input score 100; 15th percentile among comparable filings