The Charlotte Optimist
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 995045024
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2025–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- Charlotte, NC, USA
- Rating
- 53
- Verdict
- MIXED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Media, Communications Organizations
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $198,706
- Expenses
- $196,401
- Assets
- $216,017
- Liabilities
- $6,212
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
4 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Michael Graff (CEO)
People named in this filing
- Michael Graff (CEO)
- Brian Castleberry (Chair)
- Ami Shukla (Secretary)
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
A nonprofit media platform that strengthens the Charlotte community through thoughtful dialogue and high-quality local storytelling and journalism.
What it reported doing in 2025
Newsletter: The organization provides a weekly long form newsletter.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent revenue detail to tell how this nonprofit funds its work.
- 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
MIXED - The filed numbers largely add up. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and a relatively small share of total spending goes to programs.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 20
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 39
- Growth: 20
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 19.8%; rating input score 20
- Program expense ratio: 20%; rating input score 20
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 1.2%; rating input score 35; 35th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.1; rating input score 62; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.03; rating input score 30; 30th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 62.1%; rating input score 3; 3rd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: Limited
- Revenue growth: -4.3% per year; rating input score 0; 9th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 4% per year; rating input score 100; 39th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 19.8% of revenue deployed · 20% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $39K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 4 people listed
- Consistency: 7 of 7 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- 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.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 20/100.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 20/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 35/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 3/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 30/100.