The American City Coalition Inc

What it reported doing in 2024

Savor the square: savor the square implements recommendations from the nubian square market analysis (2020) in which residents and businesses voice a strong need for saturday and evening events. Launched in 2020, savor the square, nubian square's seasonal open-air marketplace located on the roxbury branch boston public library plaza, brings together existing brick-and-mortar businesses and entrepreneurial vendors into one marketplace located at the core of the business district. This amenity is free and open to the public. The program primarily serves the 54,905 residents of roxbury as well as visitors from surrounding neighborhoods and beyond, 25 roxbury-based vendors/micro-entrepreneurs, and 151 brick and mortar retail businesses operating in nubian square. Recent accomplishments include: hosting monthly savor the square markets (april-october) on roxbury branch boston public library plaza, hosting the third annual greater roxbury book fair, introducing new resources and opportunities into the community (e.g., health, employment), providing a venue and new audiences for local performing artists, increasing the revenue for vendors and brick and mortar businesses. Waterways: connecting residents for roxbury and dorchester to boston's waterfront: in 2018, tacc launched waterways, a long-term equity initiative to increase access and utilization of boston's waterfront. Currently, the program has four core components: resident advocacy, waterfront programming, workforce development, and connected economies. Tacc is collaborating with a range of implementation partners to advance strategies that respond to resident-identified barriers to access and utilization, and catalyze sustained engagement so that more roxbury and dorchester residents are invested in and connected to the waterfront. The long-term goal is to give voice to a broader group of residents from roxbury and dorchester to impact programs, policies, and accessibility so that as the waterfront continues to evolve, it does so more equitably with the needs and interests of the roxbury and dorchester communities actively considered and implemented. The program serves lower-income, multigenerational family/friends groups from roxbury and dorchester; in 2024, the program directly served over 5,000 residents. Recent accomplishments include: hosting five large-scale public programs on the waterfront (4,231 registrations); conducting outreach and sharing information about access to the waterfront and its benefits in the roxbury and dorchester communities, including at public and subsidized housing communities; produced and shared public awareness campaign on public rights to the waterfront; trained 25 waterways resident ambassadors; hosted a community shareback to share and gather feedback from program participants and the community; collaborated on two research/policy publications: boston waterfront partners' equity rubric for waterfront development, strengthening the inner harbor: policy & investment recommendations for boston's working ports. Roxbury worx: roxbury worx is a roxbury-focused workforce development initiative that is bringing the untapped talent of roxbury's hidden and middle-skills workers into the talent pipeline in three industries: biotech/life sciences, healthcare, and green/blue tech. By developing a roxbury-focused workforce development model that is responsive to community-identified barriers to accessing meaningful jobs, roxbury worx is changing employer recruitment and retention practices, developing pathways to in-demand roles using existing educational assets, and engaging more roxbury residents in the workforce. By focusing on hidden and middle-skills workers, roxbury worx is changing the narrative about roxbury workers from one that is deficit based (e.g., low-skills, low educational attainment) to one that is asset based (e.g., unique capabilities, lived experience) and embraces the diversity and multiplicity of talent that exists in the community.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 71.8%; rating input score 72
• Program expense ratio: 82.1%; rating input score 82
• Fundraising efficiency: $18.5 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 56; 56th 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; 76th percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 87.5%; rating input score 88; 21st percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 5 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 62
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Fail
  • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Fail
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 12.8%; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.62; rating input score 29; 29th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.34; rating input score 22; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 34.4%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 18.2% per year; rating input score 100; 80th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 30.8% per year; rating input score 100; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: -0.2% per year; rating input score 0; 17th percentile among comparable filings