Wellesley College
Overview
Mission
To provide an excellent liberal arts education for women who will make a difference in the world.
What it reported doing in 2024
Wellelsey college has a long tradition of need-blind admission for u.s. Citizens and permanent residents, making admission decisions without regard to a family's financial situation. Through its financial aid program, the college meets 100 percent of a student's demonstrated financial need. Resources dedicated to the financial aid program ensure that wellesley is successful in recruiting and enrolling a strong and diverse student body with continued attention to issues of funding and affordability. Approximately 60% of the student body receives financial aid.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 62% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 73% for direct work, and 27% for grants.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 042103637
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2009–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-T 2024
- Headquarters
- Wellesley, MA, USA
- Rating
- 83
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Universities
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and the filing reports few safeguards for setting executive pay.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 79
- Transparency & Controls: 79
- Accountability: 94
- Sustainability: 82
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 88.3%; rating input score 88
- Program expense ratio: 77.2%; rating input score 77
- Fundraising efficiency: $10.38 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 71st percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 4 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 67
- Foreign activity oversight: 1 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 12
- Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Yes; rating input score 100
- Public monitoring controls: Limited
- Public policy transparency: Limited
- Public financial transparency: Limited
- Impact reporting controls: Limited
- Public relationship transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 97.1%; rating input score 97; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 8 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 89
- Public governance controls: Limited
- Zakat policy transparency: Limited
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 23.1%; rating input score 89; 89th percentile among comparable filings
- Operating reserve ratio: 11.24; rating input score 91; 91st percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.14; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 2.9%; rating input score 40; 40th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 1.6% per year; rating input score 100; 13th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 3.6% per year; rating input score 100; 29th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 5.6% per year; rating input score 100; 41st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 88.3% of revenue deployed · 77.2% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 33 of 34 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $288.8M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $1.9M · 50 people listed · 4 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 46 of 46 current checks pass
- Schedules: 13 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, grants, executive pay, and related organizations
- Filing history: 16 annual filings from 2009 to 2024
- Money network: 18 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 2 filed related-organization links