Thunderheart Media Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 814842057
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2021–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2020, Form 990-N 2018
- Location
- Gallatin Gateway, MT, USA
- Phone
- 8622159900
- Rating
- 80
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Film, Video
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $226,328
- Expenses
- $427,781
- Assets
- $624,865
- Liabilities
- $12,905
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
6 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Sarah Clarke (President)
- Paulette Fox (Vice President)
Highest reported compensation
- Daniel Califf-Glick (Executive Dir.): $33,500 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
To create and distribute films and videos that are designed to foster healing, tolerance and unity and to reduce prejudice and discrimination.
What it reported doing in 2024
Our primary program to date has been the film Bring Them Home. In 2024, we finally completed the film and premiered it at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival where we won the Big Sky Award. We simultaneously launched an impact campaign to use the film to help the Blackfeet return wild buffalo and generate support for buffalo rewilding around the country. This impact campaign generated more than 30 community screenings and 25 festival screenings. We also completed a short film, Buffalo Spirit, which is a companion short to Bring Them Home.We also begin active development on Bring Them Home's sister project, Buffalo Stone, recruiting a producer for the project, doing more intensive rounds of writing of the script, and starting to approach potential funders of the project.Finally, we continue to fiscally sponsor the film project HumanKind, which completed production and entered post-production in 2024.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 88% 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.
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 fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 85
- Transparency & Controls: 85
- Accountability: 74
- Sustainability: 24
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 83.5%; rating input score 83
- Fundraising efficiency: $3.82 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 17; 17th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 90.9%; rating input score 91; 13th 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; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 3 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 38
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Fail
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -89%; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.46; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.02; rating input score 40; 40th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 7.8%; rating input score 31; 31st percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 30.3% per year; rating input score 100; 90th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 24.5% per year; rating input score 100; 91st percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 34.6% per year; rating input score 100; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 83.5% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 5 board members independent · 3 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $357K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $34K · 6 people listed
- Consistency: 24 of 25 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2021 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
- Related organizations: 1 filed related-organization link
- 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.
- Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 7 not reported.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 17/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 2/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Schedule G fundraiser detail did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 51/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 31/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 40/100.