The Trellis Center
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 452499766
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2020–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-N 2012
- Location
- Kittitas, WA, USA
- Phone
- 5099684040
- Rating
- 76
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Autism
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $386,473
- Expenses
- $369,240
- Assets
- $384,004
- Liabilities
- $376
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
8 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Sandy Spezialy (President & ED)
- Jon Rands (Vice President)
People named in this filing
- John Dillow (Director)
- Wendy Williams (Director)
- Sandy Spezialy (President & ED)
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 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The Trellis Center's mission is to help our participants with developmental disabilities improve their social self-management, problem solving, and communication skills while participating in a variety of vocational, recreational, and community activities.
What it reported doing in 2025
The Trellis Center provided support services for teens and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, Monday-Friday year round through our garden, recreational, and community programs. We provided our high school transitional participants with in-person services where we taught job skills, social-emotional learning, workspace safety and other employability skills, which are important to their overall development in preparation for life after high school. We continued to grow our services by continuing our Social Emotional Learning program which help our participants acquire and effectively apply knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships and make responsible decisions.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 73% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- 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 - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. A relatively small share of voting board members are independent and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 87
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 30
- Sustainability: 48
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 95.8%; rating input score 96
- Program expense ratio: 99.8%; rating input score 100
- Fundraising efficiency: Limited
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: 0%; rating input score 0; 8th 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: 4.5%; rating input score 46; 46th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.04; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 50; 50th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 67; 67th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 11.3% per year; rating input score 100; 70th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 8.8% per year; rating input score 100; 65th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 14.1% per year; rating input score 100; 73rd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 95.8% of revenue deployed · 99.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 0 of 8 board members independent · 5 of 7 filing controls reported
- Programs: 2 filed program accomplishments · $368K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 8 people listed
- Consistency: 24 of 24 current checks pass
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 6 filing years from 2020 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- 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 — Accountability: Independent voting board scored 0/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 46/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 42/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 50/100.