Sidewalk Trees & Gardens
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 471687278
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2025–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2024
- Location
- Oakland, CA, USA
- Phone
- 5106291350
- Rating
- 67
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Agricultural Programs
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $132,527
- Expenses
- $31,265
- Assets
- $108,392
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Samantha Columbus (President)
- Patricia Johnson (Vice President)
People named in this filing
- Robert Selna (Treasurer)
- Jenny Kauffman (Secretary)
- Samantha Columbus (President)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Mobilizing community-led projects to plant trees in high need areas and transform abandoned land into vibrant green space.
What it reported doing in 2025
- Transformed 5,000 squarefoot abandoned public property in North Oakland into a native pollinator garden & community space. - Planted a Miyawaki miniforest of over 500 plants and 250 tree saplings at high-visibility West Oakland site to improve air quality, cool temperatures and create habitat by increasing tree canopy and inspiring similar action nearby. - Accelerated tree plantings by organizing and planting nearly 50 street trees across four different Oakland neighborhoods. - Continuing 10+ years of upkeep and leadership for the Temescal Street Garden, a community space and beekeeping project. - Established fiscal Sponsorship for Temescal Open Edible Gardens, an annual neighborhood garden event and year round community for sharing gardening knowledge & resources. - Featured on six different local news stations & grew our support base to over 250 individuals.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 100% 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 revenue comfortably covers expenses. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and reported officer compensation is a large share of total spending, which may reflect staffing concentration.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 45
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 82
- Growth: NotEnoughData
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 20.3%; rating input score 20
- Program expense ratio: 85.7%; rating input score 86
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 76.4%; rating input score 97; 97th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.47; rating input score 91; 91st percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 74; 74th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 48%; rating input score 6; 6th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: Limited
- Revenue growth: Limited
- Asset growth: Limited
Details
- Where the money goes: 20.3% of revenue deployed · 85.7% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $27K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 5 people listed
- Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- 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 — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 20/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 6/100.
- Review — Grant Readiness: California registration: this organization could not be resolved against the register, so the check is unfinished.