Womens Audio Mission

What it reported doing in 2025

Girls on the Mic: Music/Media Production Training for Middle/High School Girls (GOTM) GOTM uses music and media tech to connect under-resourced Bay Area girls/gender expansive youth to free weekly after-school audio training. Students learn how to use technology to amplify their voices and stories by creating their own podcasts, radio shows, music projects, soundtracks and more. WAM has partnered with 50 schools/organizations across three cities for year-round programming. In 2025, GOTM delivered 15 weekly workshops year-round that reached 2,197 girls through 29 partner sites. WAM Academy Certification Training WAM Academy equips under-resourced young women each year with hands-on, job-specific audio engineering and technology skills, critical industry certifications (Avid Pro Tools, Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio, and Dante IT), and in-depth career exploration across the prfessional audio sectors. Taught by Women industry professionals, the curriculum includes pro audio production workflow and operations in live sound and recording studio environments. In 2025 WAM academy served 656 women and gender-expansive people. Paid Internship and Job Placement Program WAM Recruits six (6) internship cohorts annually (3 in SF, 3 in LA) for high-school and college aged women/gender expansive people pursuing sound engineering and audio technology careers. This program provides hands-on training, mentorship, and direct industry connections. Interns shadow professionals at WAMs recording studios and with women industry professionals at our partners like Dolby, Sony, ESPN, Apple and major festivals and venues like Outside Lands and the Greek Theater WAMCon Conferences WAMs national recording arts conference series for women/gender-expansive aspiring music producers, songwriters and recording engineers featuring panels, workshops, and networking with industry experts who have worked with everyone from Selena Gomez to Cardi B to Pink and Rihanna. In 2025, WAM hosted two successful WAMCon conferences in Nashville and Los Angeles, reaching over 200 attendees with programming led by Grammy-award winning artists and producers like K.Flay and Suzy Shinn. WAMs Local Sirens Artist Residency and Concert Series Provides free recording studio services ($10K value) and artist mentorship/developement in WAMs professional recording studios to local, under-represented (majority low-income; 100% BIPOC) women/gender-expansive artists each year, as well as paid performances at premier venues like SF Jazz, Brava Theater, Dolby, The Independent, Rickshaw Stop, etc. Concerts are free to the public and accessible to all ages. In 2025, the Local Sirens program awarded 7 paid residencies serving 10 artists total, and produced 4 free, public, all-ages concerts, providing paid performance opportunities to 30 artists for audiences of 1500

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 91.3%; rating input score 91
• Program expense ratio: 90.6%; rating input score 91
• Fundraising efficiency: $15.17 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 47; 47th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
  • Compensation committee: Pass
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
  • Written employment contract: Missing
  • Compensation survey or study: Pass
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• 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; 64th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 8 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 0.4%; rating input score 32; 32nd percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 4.3; rating input score 82; 82nd percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.05; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 22.5%; rating input score 13; 13th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 15.4% per year; rating input score 100; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 13.8% per year; rating input score 100; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 16.7% per year; rating input score 100; 73rd percentile among comparable filings