Valley Verde

What it reported doing in 2025

Shared garden program: valley verde partners with schools in underserved neighborhoods. Children are taught to garden at school, while their parents garden at home. Families enrolled in the program are provided raised-bed gardens at home, along with the supplies needed to grow fresh vegetables; such as soil, compost, irrigation systems, and seedlings. Families attend a full year of monthly workshops where they learn about best practices in organic urban agriculture. We also share ideas for healthy, affordable and delicious meals. In addition to building skills, workshops are an opportunity to build a stronger sense of community with otherfamilies. After the first year, many home gardening alumni stay involved by pickingup free seedlings each season for their home gardens and continuing to receivetechnical advice from the valley verde community. Deep roots: after a year of participation in the shared garden program, participantsare eligible to participate in the deep roots program, where they learn advanced gardening skills, such as propagating, seed germination, and water conservation. It's a six month program. Super jardineros: a two-year apprenticeship program for deep roots program alumni.participants learn entrepreneurship and job skills training as apprentices and learn to grow commercial-quality organic seedlings. The seedlings are used to supply the shared garden program and/or are sold to the public. The seedlings that are grown reflect the cultural preferences of santa clara county's largest ethnic groups, i.e. Mexican, vietnamese, indian, chinese, and filipino. Homeland nursery: valley verde started it's own nursery in 2021. Community members can purchase multi-ethnic vegetable seedlings for their garden.composting: underserved community members are eligible to participate in the six month composting program, where they learn how to turn food waste into compost using a compost bin or a worm bin.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
• Program expense ratio: 82.8%; rating input score 83
• Fundraising efficiency: $7 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 29; 29th percentile among comparable filings

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: Limited
• 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: NotApplicable
  • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Missing
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -59.2%; rating input score 3; 3rd percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.6; rating input score 28; 28th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 50; 50th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 16.4%; rating input score 22; 22nd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 11.4% per year; rating input score 100; 70th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 8.1% per year; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 18.9% per year; rating input score 100; 81st percentile among comparable filings