Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center Inc

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
611342481
IRS 990-EZ coverage
2021–2025
Forms available
Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2020
Location
Berea, KY, USA
Phone
8595823618
Rating confidence
Limited
Sector
Agricultural Programs

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$-11,742
Expenses
$6,934
Assets
$94,421
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

  • Michael J Best (Executive Director)
  • Bill Best (President)

People named in this filing

  • Michael J Best (Executive Director)
  • Bill Best (President)
  • Rosemary Francis (Director)

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

Agricultural Education in sustainable agriculture and service to the agricultural community. To educate young and old alike to the value of genetic diversity and seed saving. To provide open pollinated germplasm to gardeners and farmers. Sales of these seeds goes to pay for the cost of production including paying student's internship wages.

What it reported doing in 2025

We grew 90 heirloom varieties of seeds and sold packs of them to over 1,600 people. We participated in 5 seed swaps of which one of them we held in Berea ourselves. We had one intern working for us during the summer, a student from Western Kentucky University, teaching her the process of growing and saving seeds. We have over 1000 heirloom varieties in storage, including both tomatoes and cornfield beans.

Operating model

Revenue model
No positive adjusted resources. The filing reports no positive adjusted operating resources.
Distribution model
Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent spending detail to tell whether the nonprofit works directly or through others.

The verdict

- The available evidence is not sufficient to produce an overall rating for this filing. This is not a warning sign.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 100
  • Transparency & Controls: 82
  • Sustainability: 38
  • Growth: 40

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: Limited
  • 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: Limited

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -159.1%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 13.62; rating input score 94; 94th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 576.9%; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 3.5% per year; rating input score 100; 57th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: -37.9% per year; rating input score 0; 8th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: -10.5% per year; rating input score 0; 17th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 100% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: Filed governance answers
  • Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $66K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 5 people listed
  • Consistency: 8 of 9 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 2 filed schedules
  • Filing history: 5 filing years from 2021 to 2025
  • 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.

  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Part III program expenses within total did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 5/100.
  • High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 0/100.