Skip to content
Nonprofiteer
← All organizations

SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS RESEARCH FOUNDATION

EIN 47-2856470 SANTA CRUZ, CA

Revenue 2025
$359,864
Expenses 2025
$283,639

Program services were 87.7% of total expenses calculated — Part IX's program-services column over total expenses, both as filed.

As filed

Subsection
03
NTEE code
P05
Classification
1200
Street
2861 MISSION ST

These codes are the IRS's own and are shown exactly as filed. What each one means is in the Business Master File documentation (opens in a new tab).

Mission and programs · 2025

Mission

The Sustainable Systems Research Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit green think tank and project incubator based in Santa Cruz, California. SSRF seeks to: Address complex and wicked environmental and sustainability problems that confound communities, defy singular technical or social solutions and cannot be addressed successfully at a global scale. Bring together numerous stakeholders with competing interests, capacities and approaches while addressing the critical importance of equity and justice. Collaborate with partner organizations to incubate and develop local projects and programs that promote community sustainability and development. Pursue projects that are replicable and scalable, based on best practices and insights drawn from successful projects. Our philosophy is that a project or program implemented successfully at one site can be replicated in many other places, with appropriate adjustments to local conditions.

  • SSRF collaborated with Esperanza Farms on a NIFA-USDA Farm to Cafeteria project which provided fresh produce and salads to several schools in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District.

    Expenses $39,990 · Grants $39,990

  • SSRF fiscally sponsored and supported Regeneration, a project to provide technical assistance and other services to disadvantaged operators of small farms (less than 50 acres) on the Central Coast of California and to develop a training curriculum for extension instructors and farmers.

    Expenses $49,145 · Grants $9,862 · Revenue -$39,283

  • SSRF continued its work related to solar community energy systems.

    Expenses $6,594 · Grants $5,000 · Revenue -$1,594

  • SSRF took on Fiscal sponsorship of Protect San Benito County a project to preserve open space and farmland from development.

    Expenses $103,102 · Grants $225,000 · Revenue $121,898

  • SSRF conducted a field experiment to see whether applications of compost to farm fields would reduce nitrate infiltration into groundwater.

    Expenses $50,000 · Grants $1,750 · Revenue -$48,250

As filed on the 2025 return.

Officers and directors · 2025

As listed in Part VII of the 2025 return, in the order the filer printed them. Each return names its own; this is not a roster the organization keeps with us.

  • Kevin W Bell

    Vice President

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    2

  • Ronnie D Lipschutz

    President

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    15

  • Adina Paytan

    Treasurer

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    0

  • Dustin Mulvaney

    Board Member

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    0

  • Ann Lopez

    Board Member

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    0

  • Sheila Davis

    Board Member

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    0

  • Marisha Farnsworth

    Board Member

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    0

  • Steven Mentor

    Board member

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    0

  • Beatriz Smith

    Board members

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    0

  • Thomas Rettenwender

    Board member

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    0

Compensation is as filed in Part VII: reportable pay from this organization and from related organizations, other compensation, and hours per week. The total, marked calculated, is our sum of the three dollar columns, with a blank column counted as $0; the form itself has no total. On a Form 990-EZ the columns are Part IV's instead, and on a Form 990-PF Part VIII's — compensation, contributions to benefit plans, and expense account — and the total sums those. Earlier years are each on their own filing page.

Filings

  • 2025
    Revenue
    $359,864
    Expenses
    $283,639
    Contributions
    $359,784
    Grants paid
    $0
  • 2024
    Revenue
    $458,051
    Expenses
    $322,587
    Contributions
    $457,606
    Grants paid
    $3,120
  • 2023
    Revenue
    $163,217
    Expenses
    $163,217
    Contributions
    $163,217
    Grants paid
    $0
  • 2022
    Revenue
    $97,529
    Expenses
    $61,956
    Contributions
    $97,529
    Grants paid
    $0

The four totals the IRS asks for on Part I of the Form 990, as filed. A dash means the figure was not present on the return — not that it was zero.

Other returns filed

  • 2021 · 990-EZ

    Revenue
    $82,231
    Expenses
    $65,967
    Assets (EOY)
    $23,251

Nonprofiteer parses Forms 990, 990-EZ and 990-PF, in a window of recent tax years. These returns are recorded from the IRS e-file index, so their figures were extracted by that index rather than read from the return here — treat them as a different source from the filings above, not as more of the same record. A dash means the index carries no figure; Form 990-T listings carry none at all.

Form 990-N e-Postcard, tax year 2020

Tax period
1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020
Principal officer
Ronnie Lipschutz
Mailing address
2861 MISSION STSANTA CRUZ CA 95060
Website
https://sustainablesystemsfoundation.org

As filed, from the IRS e-Postcard file of 19 October 2026. The IRS publishes only each organization's most recent postcard, so earlier years are not shown. A 990-N carries no financial detail. The postcard also gives the principal officer's address, which is not shown here.

Grants made

No itemized grants to organizations. Schedule I is filed only by organizations that granted more than $5,000 to a recipient, so most filers have none.

Grants received

Other IRS files

Auto-Revocation List

Not listed. The IRS publishes this list for organizations whose exemption was automatically revoked for failing to file for three consecutive years.

Publication 78

Listed as of 13 October 2026, under deductibility PC.

These are two separate IRS files on two separate schedules, shown as published and not reconciled with each other. Neither is a statement about whether a contribution is deductible today: 19,245 organizations appear in Publication 78 while the IRS's own revocation file lists them as currently revoked, more than half of those revoked before 2019. Absence from Publication 78 is evidence of nothing, and presence is not evidence either. Verify current status with the IRS before relying on it.

What this page reflects

The registration facts above come from the IRS Business Master File published 13 October 2026 and read 26 October 2026, for every organization at once. Returns through tax year 2025, the newest we have parsed for this organization.