Urban Produce Push
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 331840102
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2025–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Kansas City, MO, USA
- Phone
- 8164058676
- Rating
- 71
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Food Programs
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $2,306,513
- Expenses
- $2,269,191
- Assets
- $45,834
- Liabilities
- $2,644
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
7 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Michael Watson (Executive Director)
- Amber Smith (President)
Highest reported compensation
- Michael Watson (Executive Director): $100,000 total reported compensation
- Caress Gonzales (Program Director): $20,250 total reported compensation
- Amber Smith (President): $18,500 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Urban Produce Push is dedicated to alleviating food insecurity, enhancing dietary nutrition, and mitigating agricultural food waste throughout the Greater Kansas City area. By establishing robust partnerships with regional farmers, local growers, and agricultural networks, the organization recovers, gleans, and redistributes fresh, high-quality produce directly to underserved neighborhoods, local shelters, and neighborhood food pantries.
What it reported doing in 2025
Supported by a total resource pool of $2,306,513.56 (combining $1,776,000.00 in non-cash in-kind farm produce and $530,513.56 in operational cash grants and donations), Urban Produce Push (UPP) executed its primary fresh food recovery, gleaning, and distribution program to combat regional food insecurity. Utilizing an extensive network of community volunteers, UPP coordinated field gleaning events and farm pickups directly from local small-to-medium-scale farming partners. Rescued produce was valued strictly by wholesale harvest-donation metrics per pound, protecting hundreds of thousands of pounds of fresh, nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables from farm-level waste or transit spoilage. Under strict logistics and cold-chain monitoring, these free, fresh food items were immediately sorted, packed, and distributed directly to localized food pantries, urban neighborhood mobile sites, and local community organizations. This direct-delivery pipeline eliminated transportation and financial barriers for low-income urban families, providing dignified access to raw agricultural nutrition while strengthening the regional food ecosystem
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 100% 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
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: 82
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Accountability: 32
- Sustainability: 28
- Growth: NotEnoughData
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 91.6%; rating input score 92
- Program expense ratio: 93.1%; rating input score 93
- Fundraising efficiency: Limited
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd 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; 4th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 7 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 78
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 1.6%; rating input score 32; 32nd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.02; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.06; rating input score 58; 58th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 6.8%; rating input score 46; 46th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: Limited
- Revenue growth: Limited
- Asset growth: Limited
Details
- Where the money goes: 91.6% of revenue deployed · 93.1% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 0 of 5 board members independent · 7 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $2.3M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $100K · 7 people listed
- Consistency: 25 of 26 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 1 filing year from 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 5 filed money-flow records
- 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: 2 of 9 not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 32/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 1/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 46/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 58/100.