Southern California Seminary
Legal name: Southern California Seminary Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 952111210
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2009–2024
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- El Cajon, CA, US
- Phone
- (888) 389-7244
- Rating
- 75
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Affiliation
- Christianity
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $2,492,094
- Expenses
- $2,834,149
- Assets
- $511,632
- Liabilities
- $373,943
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
17 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- GARY COOMBS (PRESIDENT/VICE CHAIRMAN)
Highest reported compensation
- DAVID JEREMIAH (CHANCELLOR): $283,648 total reported compensation
- GARY COOMBS (PRESIDENT/VICE CHAIRMAN): $275,652 total reported compensation
- JOSH JAMES (CFO): $203,240 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
To equip men and women for Christian ministry and service through biblically-based higher education.
What it reported doing in 2024
Southern California seminary library services are joint-use with san diego christian college. Their respective libraries provide students with access to more than 338,731 e-books, e-audio or e-reference titles plus another 65,010 streaming audio and/or videos, along with unique journal access included to full text articles. Students can conduct research through more than a 150 databases and the libraries have surpassed more than 1 million cataloged items.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 73% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 88% 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. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 78
- Transparency & Controls: 75
- Accountability: 79
- Sustainability: 9
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 86.7%; rating input score 87
- Program expense ratio: 76.3%; rating input score 76
- Fundraising efficiency: $10.05 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 38; 38th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
- Compensation committee: Missing
- 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: 100%; rating input score 100; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 86.7%; rating input score 87; 18th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 6 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 67
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Fail
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -13.7%; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.18; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.73; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 19.7%; rating input score 13; 13th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 0% per year; rating input score 100; 14th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 1.3% per year; rating input score 100; 17th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 0.8% per year; rating input score 100; 15th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 4 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 6 operating locations identified
- Where the money goes: 86.7% of revenue deployed · 76.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 13 of 15 board members independent · 6 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 2 filed program accomplishments · $2.2M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $284K · 17 people listed · 1 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 37 of 37 current checks pass
- Schedules: 9 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 16 filing years from 2009 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 3 filed related-organization links
- 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.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 9 not reported.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 38/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 10/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 5/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 12/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 13/100.
- High — Grant Readiness: Federal audit findings: this organization reported findings in its latest federal Single Audit.