Solar Rights Education Fund
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 923087876
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2023–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- San Diego, CA, USA
- Phone
- 9167780096
- Rating
- 96
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Public, Society Benefit N.E.C.
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $56,230
- Expenses
- $86,046
- Assets
- $67,926
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
4 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- DEREK CRESSMAN (PRESIDENT)
People named in this filing
- DAVID ROSENFELD (EXECUTIVE DI)
- DEREK CRESSMAN (PRESIDENT)
- JERRY MERAL (TREASURER)
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
The solar rights education fund educates the public and policymakers about matters relevant to consumer solar energy and battery storage in California.
What it reported doing in 2025
Streamlining rooftop solar permitting wrapped up a multi-year effort to help local governments comply with the solar access act and adopt an automatic, instantaneous process for issuing residential solar and storage permits. Thanks to these efforts, 80% of californians live in a city or county with instant solar permitting. Published a guidebook for how we did it, and did several presentations to organizations around the country who are interested in replicating our efforts.
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
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Expenses are high relative to revenue and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 100
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 19
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -53%; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.79; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
- Officer compensation ratio: 38.6%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 95.3% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 0.9% per year; rating input score 100; 53rd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 9.2% per year; rating input score 100; 68th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 3 filed program accomplishments · $86K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 4 people listed
- Consistency: 6 of 6 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 3 filing years from 2023 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
- 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.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 12/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 42/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 5/100.