Society of California Pioneers

What it reported doing in 2024

Collections preservation/library - for over one hundred and seventy-five years, the society of California pioneers has been the steward of a collection of historical artifacts and archives that help advance the knowledge of early California history. The preservation of this historically significant collection is central to our mission.the society's historical collection encompasses an outstanding array of paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, silverware, and artifacts dating from the gold rush era to 1945. The painting collection is particularly notable for its nineteenth-century holdings and includes works by thomas hill, william keith, jules tavernier, and william hahn among many others. The collection is equally rich in works on paper ranging from etchings, lithographs, and posters, to playbills, theater announcements, and music sheets that chronicle the leisure activities and entertainments of cosmopolitan san francisco. The society's collection of old California silver is among the finest in existence and there are also costumes and personal effects, medical devices, musical instruments, and tools and implements related to gold and silver mining, all of which provide a compelling account of early California and its inhabitants.the society regularly lends artifacts to other institutions that wish to enhance their own exhibitions using items from our collection. We recently loaned our painting "wild horse country" by maynard dixon to the Nevada art museum for their exhibition about maynard dixon. This helps fulfill our mission to share our historic collection with the public. The alice phelan sullivan library holdings are noteworthy and include rare books, manuscripts, archival collections and photographs. The subject focus is san francisco, California and the west during the mission, mexican, and gold rush eras continuing through the 19th and early 20th century. The library houses over 12,000 volumes of books and periodicals. The pamphlet and ephemera collections are extensive, covering topics such as mining, the early history of the state and san francisco, and the panama-pacific international exposition. The manuscript collection includes overland diaries, business records, letters and scrapbooks. The institutional records of the society contain many first-hand accounts of members' lives and experiences in early California. The map collection of nearly 2,000 maps illustrates overland trails to California, state topography, the port of san francisco, railroad lines, mining districts and water sources. Over 250 titles of California newspapers and periodicals are housed in the library as well as oral histories.specific collections include: the cooper-molera papers (1828-1910), patterson ranch papers, the sherman music and theater broadside collection, California battalion documents, and the angel island collection of government documents, diaries, reports and maps. Prominent among the diaries are those of john a. Sutter and henry w. Bigler, the two primary sources of documentation for the 1848 discovery of gold in California. The photography collection numbers over 48,000 and includes daguerreotypes, the charles b. Turrill collection, carleton e. Watkins photographs, 1200 views published by lawrence & houseworth depicting early views of towns, industries and mining in California, and alfred a. Hart's photographs documenting the building of the central pacific. Library services include responding to reference inquiries via phone, email or letter, as well as pulling materials and working directly with researchers in person. The audience is wide historians, students, filmmakers, genealogists and the inquiries and visitors are not only from California, but all over the country and the world. The library maintains several online databases: our books are cataloged on the international database worldcat, our manuscripts are in the online archive of California, our newspapers are on the California newspaper project, our ephemer

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
• Program expense ratio: 75.4%; rating input score 75
• Fundraising efficiency: $4.12 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 13; 13th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 2 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 33
  • Compensation committee: Pass
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
  • Written employment contract: Missing
  • Compensation survey or study: Missing
  • 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: 6 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 75
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • 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: -53.2%; rating input score 3; 3rd percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 7.31; rating input score 89; 89th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.1; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 16.7%; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 1.6% per year; rating input score 100; 24th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 1.5% per year; rating input score 100; 21st percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 0.8% per year; rating input score 100; 20th percentile among comparable filings