Follow the money. All of it.
Where a dollar enters, every hand it passes through, and where it stops. If you give us money, you are entitled to this. If you work here, you should know it too.
Four doors, and what each one buys
| Source | Restricted? | What it can pay for |
|---|---|---|
| You — $50/month | No | Anything. Unrestricted money is the rarest and most useful kind. Mostly it becomes somebody’s paycheck. |
| Foundations & grants | Usually yes | Whatever the grant says. Often the neighbors nobody can bill for. |
| Health plan contract | Yes | Care management for their enrolled members only. Earned revenue — we get paid because we saved them an ER visit. |
| Clinic outreach contract | Yes | Outreach services, at a flat rate set in advance. Never per patient. |
Why “never per patient” matters. Paying an organization for each patient it delivers to a clinic is patient brokering, and it is a federal crime. So the contract is flat and fixed in advance, and our payment does not move with how many people we send. That is not a technicality — it is the line between a business and an indictment, and you should check that we are on the right side of it.
Where a sponsor dollar actually lands
We will publish the real percentages when we have a real payroll. Guessing at them now would just be marketing.
| Goes to | Share | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Navigator wages & benefits | [pending] | The largest line by far, and intentionally so. This work is people’s time. There is no version where the salary is the waste. |
| Transport & mutual aid | [pending] | Gas, taxis, bus passes, parking, rent in a bad month, groceries, childcare. Never a medical bill. |
| Supervision & training | [pending] | Clinical escalation, certification, keeping people from burning out. |
| Insurance, audit, compliance | [pending] | Liability, auto, D&O, the annual audit. Boring, and the absence of it is how organizations hurt people. |
| Fundraising | [pending] | The canvassers’ hourly wages. We will publish this number even when it is unflattering. |
Money we will not take, and money we will not move
The constraints matter more than the percentages.
We never pay a medical bill from a pooled fund.
Collect money and promise to cover people’s medical costs and you are an insurance company — an unlicensed one. We pay for the ride to the appointment, never the appointment.
We never take a payment per patient referred.
Not from a clinic, not from a hospital, not from anyone. Flat contracts, set in advance, or nothing.
No money flows to our founder’s company.
Our founder owns a for-profit medical corporation. Value may flow from that company to this one — donated time, expertise, space. Never the other direction without disinterested directors approving it at market rate, with him out of the room. Full disclosures →
Nobody takes a cut of anything.
No commissions, no quotas, no bonuses tied to dollars raised. Every wage here is an hourly wage. Surplus buys the next navigator; it is never distributed to a person.
Do not take our word for any of this.
The Form 990
Every 501(c)(3) files a public annual return showing revenue, expenses, and what its highest earners are paid. Ours goes here the day we have one, permanently. An organization that promises transparency and files nothing public is telling you something.
The state registry
California’s Attorney General maintains a public registry of charities. Before you give anyone in this state a dollar — us included — look them up. If an organization is not registered, it is not allowed to ask you.
The one number
Avoidable emergency room visits prevented. We will publish it whether it flatters us or not. If it does not move, we will tell you that here rather than let you find out from someone else. How we measure →
Right now, we are not asking you for money. Our 501(c)(3) is in process and we are not registered with the state registry, so we are not permitted to solicit and we are not doing it. This page exists so that when we do ask, you already know exactly what happens next.