Taproot Collective Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 821454431
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2023–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2022, Form 990-N 2020
- Location
- Rochester, NY, USA
- Phone
- 5853534925
- Rating
- 75
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Urban, Community Economic Development
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $411,243
- Expenses
- $391,423
- Assets
- $176,135
- Liabilities
- $28,521
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
7 people listed
People named in this filing
- STEPHANIE BENWAY (BOARD MEMBER)
- MADELAINE BRITT (BOARD MEMBER)
- MIKE EVANS (BOARD MEMBER)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Taproot's mission is to support community gardens through programs, materials, and policy, and to use urban agriculture as the setting for high quality youth workforce development. Our vision is a city of rochester filled with thriving neighborhoods.
What it reported doing in 2024
Taproot works with community gardens located on vacant lots and at schools, libraries, r centers, food pantries, and grassroots nonprofits. Our programs focus on increasing the capacity of community gardeners to feed, beautify, and connect with their neighborhoods. Our garden program, the collective, supports over 70 community gardens a year. The services include workshops, materials giveaways, garden planning and design, installation and infrastructure improvements, and back-end support with resource and volunteer development, land access, and strategy. Participants in our youth employment program - the community food team - build skills in gardening, landscaping, and carpentry in an environmental and food justice framework, while building and installing projects at community gardens. We hire 30-40 youth interns each year for summer and year-round opportunities. We focus on building supportive, long-term employment opportunities for youth that prepare them to reach their career or educational goals.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Grant-funded. 75% of the money available for current operations came from government grants.
- 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 a large share of available resources goes toward mission work. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 65
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 76
- Sustainability: 41
- Growth: 80
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 72.1%; rating input score 72
- Program expense ratio: 75.7%; rating input score 76
- Fundraising efficiency: Limited
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- 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: 3 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 43
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 4.8%; rating input score 50; 50th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.45; rating input score 22; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.16; rating input score 22; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 39.3% per year; rating input score 100; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 44.1% per year; rating input score 100; 96th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -1.5% per year; rating input score 0; 19th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 72.1% of revenue deployed · 75.7% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 6 of 6 board members independent · 3 of 7 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $296K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 7 people listed
- Consistency: 22 of 22 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 2 filing years from 2023 to 2024
- 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.
- Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 6 not reported.
- Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 50/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 22/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 22/100.