The Aja Project
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 330969020
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2010–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2009
- Location
- San Diego, CA, USA
- Phone
- 6192590136
- Rating
- 77
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- International Migration, Refugee Issues
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $357,856
- Expenses
- $421,584
- Assets
- $246,361
- Liabilities
- $50,678
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
6 people listed
People named in this filing
- KRIS LIN-BRONNER (SECRETARY (THROUGH OCT 24))
- SANDRA AINSLIE (CHAIR)
- JUSTIN APGER (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. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The aja project is a compassionate space for young people, activists, visual artists and educators to engage critically with issues that affect our community and realize our collective liberation through participatory storytelling and the documentary arts.
What it reported doing in 2024
Programs: the aja project exists to ignite change, break cycles of marginalization, and to build healthy communities. To achieve this, aja provides participatory art and media arts programming to underserved, marginalized, and displaced youth, while amplifying their voices to advocate for social justice.see schedule o for continuance of program service accomplishments description.public art: the aja project has shared its visual narratives with over 3 million viewers through large-scale public exhibits. Aja's public art portfolio has grown significantly over the past year as we bare witness to the power of public art to ignite important social conversations, promote cross-cultural understanding and foster a sense of collective belonging in diverse communities. In the past 12 months alone, this has included participatory installations - short-term, long-term, and permanent - at the san diego international airport, the san diego museum of man, market creek plaza in southeast san diego, the east african cultural center in city heights, and many others. Fee-for-service: aja also continued to maintain our fee-for-service program revenue stream created last fiscal year. This model helps to supplement our grant and contribution revenue through partnership with various local organizations to directly fund a portion of aja's programs and/or public art projects.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
- 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. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 64
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 88
- Sustainability: 26
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 73.1%; rating input score 73
- Program expense ratio: 61.7%; rating input score 62
- Fundraising efficiency: $5.8 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 25; 25th percentile among comparable filings
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: 5 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 71
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- 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: -17.8%; rating input score 16; 16th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.58; rating input score 28; 28th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.21; rating input score 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 1.5% per year; rating input score 100; 37th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 5.3% per year; rating input score 100; 54th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 9.6% per year; rating input score 100; 65th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 73.1% of revenue deployed · 61.7% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 5 board members independent · 5 of 7 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $260K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 6 people listed
- Consistency: 23 of 23 current checks pass
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 15 filing years from 2010 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
- 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 — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 25/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 16/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 28/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 19/100.