Pema Chödrön Foundation
Legal name: Pema Chodron Foundation
Overview
Mission
The Pema Chödron Foundation is dedicated to preserving and sharing Pema’s inspiration and teachings in order to help us all awaken wisdom and compassion in ourselves and the world around us. The focus of The Pema Chödrön Foundation is the creation of an endowment to hold and generate the funds needed to help share Pema’s teachings of how to ‘practice peace’ and to support those who choose to lead a contemplative life. The royalties from all of Pema’s books and tapes are held by the Foundation. In addition, gifts and honoraria generated by Pema benefit The Foundation. You can help to make Pema's dream of sharing peace in the world a reality. Any help that you could offer would be tremendously helpful and greatly appreciated.
What it reported doing in 2024
Various Other Programs - (see Schedules I and F). In North America and South Asia grants to 42 additional organizations and 8 retreatants: support for monasteries, monastics, and meditation centers, including scholarships for education; support health programs; support youth rehabilitation & training; provide books on meditation to prisoners and the underserved; support translation and archiving of Buddhist masters' teachings.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
- Distribution model
- Grant intermediary. The nonprofit sent 95% of its reported program spending out as grants.
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 205958865
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2016–2024
- Website reviewed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Headquarters
- Aurora, CO, United States
- Rating
- 69
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Buddhism
- Affiliation
- Buddhism
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 the filing reports that some governance safeguards are missing.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 92
- Transparency & Controls: 65
- Accountability: 29
- Sustainability: 36
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 94.6%; rating input score 95
- Fundraising efficiency: $13.39 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 47; 47th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 81.8%; rating input score 82; 1st percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: 3 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 38
- Grant itemization coverage: 96.8%; rating input score 97; 44th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
- Public monitoring controls: 0 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 0
- Public policy transparency: 1 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 14
- Public financial transparency: 0 of 5 controls in place; rating input score 0
- Impact reporting controls: 5 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 71
- Public relationship transparency: No; rating input score 0
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 16.7%; rating input score 17; 9th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 3 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 33
- Public governance controls: 3 of 4 controls in place; rating input score 75
- Zakat policy transparency: Limited
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -69.7%; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
- Operating reserve ratio: 3.37; rating input score 78; 78th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.03; rating input score 56; 56th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 6.6%; rating input score 48; 48th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 12.4% per year; rating input score 100; 69th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 0.9% per year; rating input score 100; 18th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 1.1% per year; rating input score 100; 21st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 1 operating location identified
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 94.6% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 1 of 6 board members independent · 3 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $1.8M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $41K · 7 people listed
- Consistency: 26 of 28 current checks pass · 2 findings to review
- Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, and grants
- Filing history: 8 annual filings from 2016 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 28 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 21 filed related-organization links
- 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.