The Church Studio
Legal name: The Church Studio Music Foundation
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 815331367
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2022–2025
- Official website data refreshed
- Jul 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2020, Form 990-N 2019
- Location
- Tulsa, OK, United States
- Phone
- (918) 894-2965
- Rating
- 85
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Arts, Culture, and Humanities
- Affiliation
- Christianity
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,742,598
- Expenses
- $1,609,389
- Assets
- $502,316
- Liabilities
- $1,859
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
7 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- STANTON DOYLE (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
Highest reported compensation
- STANTON DOYLE (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $150,000 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Collect, arrange, preserve, and make accessible the permanent items of The Church Studio Archive as well as rare and unique collections that support the foundation’s mission. Engage the general community through music programs, festivals, education, video, film, recording, and activities. Showcase the brotherhood, diversity, and evolution of “The Tulsa Sound.”. The Church Studio is an iconic recording facility that supports, educates, and inspires with a professional recording environment, public programs, and interpretive exhibits. Objectives of Mission: Propel legacy of Leon Russell.
What it reported doing in 2025
As a legacy landmark listed on the national register of historic places, the building is open for public events, historic tours, museum-related programming, public school tours, and other educational programming related to music and music history. The organization grants scholarships for recording studio time, venue use, group tours, lectures, and tickets to various programs for special populations that need and would benefit the most.
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 95% 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
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 85
- Transparency & Controls: 88
- Accountability: 90
- Sustainability: 41
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 95%; rating input score 95
- Program expense ratio: 97.9%; rating input score 98
- Fundraising efficiency: Limited
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 92.3%; rating input score 92; 18th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 93.7%; rating input score 94; 44th percentile among comparable filings
- 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: 6 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 75
- 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: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 7.6%; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.31; rating input score 16; 16th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 67; 67th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 9.3%; rating input score 39; 39th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 48.6% per year; rating input score 100; 94th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 36.7% per year; rating input score 100; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 17.7% per year; rating input score 100; 75th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 1 operating location identified
- Where the money goes: 95% of revenue deployed · 97.9% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 6 of 6 board members independent · 6 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 2 filed program accomplishments · $1.6M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $150K · 7 people listed
- Consistency: 26 of 27 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2022 to 2025
- 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.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 8 not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 16/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 51/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 39/100.