The Bread Line Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 920111082
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2012–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2011, Form 990-T 2025
- Location
- Fairbanks, AK, USA
- Phone
- 9074521974
- Rating
- 80
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,016,790
- Expenses
- $820,309
- Assets
- $1,963,475
- Liabilities
- $97,183
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
11 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- HANNAH HILL (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
Highest reported compensation
- HANNAH HILL (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $75,446 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Feeding people & affirming lives
What it reported doing in 2025
In 2025, the bread line served 73,580 meals from its downtown soup kitchen, the stone soup cafe. This marks a 10% increase in service over the previous year, making it the busiest year in the bread line's 42-year history of "feeding people & affirming lives" in fairbanks, Alaska. To meet the community need, the bread line relies heavily on volunteers and food donations. Over 200 local volunteers put in over 2,500 shifts, serving more than 6,000 hours across the bread line's anti-hunger programs. Much of the donated food used in the bread line's anti-hunger programs is donated by the fairbanks community food bank. The remainder comes from individual food donors & area businesses. In total, the bread line received 71,514 pounds of donated food - over 6,000 more pounds than were donated the previous year. Community meals, a free dinner program in collaboration with the southside community farmers market, was brought on as an official program of the bread line in 2025. Bread line staff increased weekly meal production for community meals to 300 meals a week throughout the summer. The stone soup community garden continues to grow, expanding the perennial "food forest" by another eight beds & planting apple trees & berry bushes. The garden continues to meet its rolling goal of growing enough food to supplement the bread line's anti-hunger work while providing fresh vegetables to local social service organizations & assisted living facilities.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 84% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
STRONG - The filed numbers largely add up and a large share of total spending goes to programs. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 68
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 84
- Sustainability: 63
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 58.7%; rating input score 59
- Program expense ratio: 72.8%; rating input score 73
- Fundraising efficiency: $648.14 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 96; 96th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd 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; 64th 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: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 19.3%; rating input score 71; 71st percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.39; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.05; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 9.2%; rating input score 40; 40th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 9.3% per year; rating input score 100; 55th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 11% per year; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 10.4% per year; rating input score 100; 56th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 58.7% of revenue deployed · 72.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 10 of 10 board members independent · 5 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 2 filed program accomplishments · $597K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $75K · 11 people listed
- Consistency: 27 of 28 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 13 filing years from 2012 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.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 59/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 7 not reported.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 40/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 43/100.