SeaLegacy Foundation Inc

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
883386612
IRS 990 coverage
2022–2024
Forms available
Form 990 2024
Location
Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA
Phone
5613868606
Rating
71
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Water Resource, Wetlands Conservation and Management

Reported finances

Revenue
$1,259,763
Expenses
$2,089,473
Assets
$0
Liabilities
$0

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

5 people listed

People named in this filing

  • John Ryan Kissick (Board Chairman)
  • Jon McCormack (Treasurer)
  • Carolina Manhusen (Secretary)

Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

To inspire people to fall in love with the ocean, amplify a network of changemakers around the world, and catalyze hands-on diplomacy through hopeful, world-class visual storytelling.

What it reported doing in 2024

Produced three (3) episodes of A Sea of Hope, spotlighting some of the world's most important conservation opportunities that are being championed by ou co-founders and transformative front-line partners. These impact campaigns include: Aotearoa New Zealand: The Beauty and The Barrens, a focus on NZ's 30X30 opportunityProtecting the Reef Documenting the bleaching of Australia's Great Barrier ReefProtecting the Bight Documenting Australia's Southern Right WhaleLeveraging world-class content to expand the audience: In addition to our popular A Sea of Hope impact campaign series, Sealegacy also produced three episodes of educational 'gateway' content published under our Marine Museum portfolio. These episodes included: Marine Museum: Underwater Swim with Giant Mantas Marine Museum: Coral Reef AdventureMarine Museum: Underwater Journey - Humpback WhalesAdvancing our focus on content management a comprehensive content organizational plan was approved to allow for seamless access to content. This process will revolutionize the operational work flows internally (driving down costs for staff, increasing efficiencies) and will help to make content easily accessible for external partners and campaigns. Additional workflow improvements for this process include: Remote access to contentAbility to upload, download, clean, and catalog in-real-timeIncreased connectivity and access for other teams (i.e. marketing, partnerships, development)Reduction of hours needed to produce campaignsIncrease of team member work-flow satisfactionIn 2024 we launched a comprehensive expedition and pre-production strategic planning initiative to better connect our scientific field work and content collection to our programmatic impact, and to the impact of our partners in key regions where we shared a joint mission to increase conservation impact. In addition to the expedition planning briefs, we welcomed the production team into the expedition framework so we could optimize pre-production, optimize field staff, and layer in important top-side support to our co-founders and partners.

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 89% 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. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 84
  • Transparency & Controls: 71
  • Accountability: 70
  • Sustainability: 10
  • Growth: 40

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Program expense ratio: 69.8%; rating input score 70
  • Fundraising efficiency: $11.29 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 91.7%; rating input score 92; 12th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Scored; rating input score 0
  • Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 76th 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: 2 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 29
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Fail
    • Whistleblower policy: Fail
    • Document-retention policy: Fail
    • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Missing
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -65.9%; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
  • Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 81; 81st percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 44.4% per year; rating input score 100; 95th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: -2% per year; rating input score 0; 9th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: -63.5% per year; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 69.8% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 5 of 5 board members independent · 2 of 7 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $1.5M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 5 people listed
  • Consistency: 25 of 26 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, and grants
  • Filing history: 3 filing years from 2022 to 2024
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
  • 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.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

  • High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight scored 0/100.
  • High — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 6 not reported.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 2/100.
  • Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 42/100.
  • High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 0/100.
  • High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.