The Vinguard
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 850755779
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2021–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- San Francisco, CA, USA
- Phone
- 4153851935
- Rating
- 87
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Alliance/Advocacy Organizations
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $73,409
- Expenses
- $66,357
- Assets
- $8,730
- Liabilities
- $1,653
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
16 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Pamela Busch (Founder, President)
People named in this filing
- Pamela Busch (Founder, President)
- Megan Bell (Board Member, Winemaking Specialist)
- Caitlin Shriner (Board Member, Marketing Specialist)
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
The Vinguards mission is to promote a culture in the wine industry centered around ecological farming, belonging, empowerment, and equity, and to amplify the voices and work of historically excluded groups who work in the wine industry.
What it reported doing in 2025
Guardian Vital ensuring workers whose labor goes into making their wines have safe workspaces, are paid fairly, and are treated with dignity, respect, and potential.
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 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
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown and reported officer compensation is a large share of total spending, which may reflect staffing concentration.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 94
- Transparency & Controls: 82
- Sustainability: 35
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 90.4%; rating input score 90
- Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Limited
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 9.6%; rating input score 60; 60th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.13; rating input score 15; 15th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.19; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 46.8%; rating input score 4; 4th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 20.3% per year; rating input score 100; 81st percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 18.6% per year; rating input score 100; 89th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 35.9% per year; rating input score 100; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 90.4% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 3 filed program accomplishments · $66K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 16 people listed
- Consistency: 7 of 7 current checks pass
- Schedules: 2 filed schedules
- Filing history: 5 filing years from 2021 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.
Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 15/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 4/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 12/100.
- High — Grant Readiness: Automatic revocation: this organization had its federal tax-exempt status automatically revoked.