The Shalom Center
Legal name: Shalom Center
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 232424621
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2015–2023
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2023, Form 990-EZ 2022
- Location
- Philadelphia, PA, United States
- Phone
- 2158448494
- Rating
- 67
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Judaism
- Affiliation
- Interfaith
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $289,761
- Expenses
- $290,902
- Assets
- $119,653
- Liabilities
- $4,654
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2023. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
13 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Cherie R Brown (President)
People named in this filing
- Madeline Canfield (Board Member)
- Rabbi Mordechai Liebling (Treasurer)
- Yehudah Webster (Board Member)
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 2023. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The Shalom Center reimagines Jewish holidays as portals for public prophetic action—building a national movement of sacred justice rooted in the Jewish calendar cycle. For 40 years, The Shalom Center served as a prophetic voice in Jewish, multireligious, and American life. We are honoring that legacy and the legacy of our Founder, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, by embracing our next chapter, guided by a new strategic vision. Through “actifests,” or “activist festivals,” The Shalom Center seeks to transform the way American Jews celebrate Jewish holidays, embracing our festival cycle as a framework for national, coordinated prophetic action. These actifests are experiments in post-activism, as we seek to embody the world we wish to see and open to emergent possibilities beyond even our wildest dreams.
What it reported doing in 2023
Jewish Multicultural Network - Emphasize the need for developing and understanding the perspectives of racially ethnic diverse Jews within the larger Jewish community and educating others on how to function in an increasingly multicultural/multiethnic Jewish community. Accordingly, JMN set out to nurture and enhance Jewish diversity throughout the community, at large, via capacity development, community development, community empowerment, and social capital.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 61% 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 - The filed numbers largely add up and a large share of available resources goes toward mission work. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 60
- Transparency & Controls: 85
- Accountability: 63
- Sustainability: 37
- Growth: 60
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 65.3%; rating input score 65
- Program expense ratio: 64.9%; rating input score 65
- Fundraising efficiency: $4.89 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 21; 21st percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 90.9%; rating input score 91; 13th 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: 66.7%; rating input score 67; 18th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 4 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 57
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Fail
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -0.4%; rating input score 40; 40th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.41; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.04; rating input score 36; 36th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 2.6% per year; rating input score 100; 44th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -2.7% per year; rating input score 0; 17th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 0.3% per year; rating input score 100; 27th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 1 operating location identified
- Where the money goes: 65.3% of revenue deployed · 64.9% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 8 of 12 board members independent · 4 of 7 filing controls reported
- Programs: 2 filed program accomplishments · $189K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 13 people listed
- Consistency: 21 of 22 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 6 filing years from 2015 to 2023
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: Resolved incoming and outgoing counterparties from filed money flows.
- Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
- 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.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 7 not reported.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 21/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 40/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 20/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 36/100.