Advocates for Snake Preservation
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 465587063
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2019–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2024, Form 990-N 2014
- Location
- Silver City, NM, USA
- Phone
- 5759565231
- Rating
- 80
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Wildlife Preservation, Protection
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $69,350
- Expenses
- $47,600
- Assets
- $47,852
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
8 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Melissa Amarello (Executive Director)
People named in this filing
- Jeffrey J Smith (Treasurer)
- Steve Marlatt (Chair)
- Gordon Burghardt (Officer)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Advocates for Snake Preservation is committed to changing how people view and treat snakes. Our mission: To use science, education, and advocacy to promote compassionate conservation and coexistence with snakes. As important predators and prey, snakes are an essential part of a vibrant, functioning planet, but negative attitudes about snakes may be the biggest barrier to their conservation. We provide solutions to human-snake conflicts that sometimes end badly for people and often prove fatal for snakes. We make snakes more familiar and less scary by busting myths and misinformation, illustrating lesser-known and appealing behaviors like parental care, and sharing stories of individual snakes to show what they're really like. Often this information is enough for people to welcome their snake neighbors and appreciate, rather than fear, their encounters. But we also recommend yard and human behavior modifications to reduce conflicts and make coexistence with venomous snakes safer.
What it reported doing in 2024
Living with Snakes: The foundation of our work is to teach about snake natural history, behavior, and how to safely coexist with them. We spoke with about 1000 folks in rural Arizona and New Mexico and more than 127,000 people visited our websites and viewed our YouTube videos this year.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 97% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.
The verdict
STRONG - The filed numbers largely add up and a large share of total spending goes to programs. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 65
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 60
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 55.9%; rating input score 56
- Program expense ratio: 80.1%; rating input score 80
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 31.4%; rating input score 82; 82nd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.01; rating input score 46; 46th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 68; 68th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 70.9%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 7.7% per year; rating input score 100; 68th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 10.6% per year; rating input score 100; 82nd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 13.5% per year; rating input score 100; 79th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 55.9% of revenue deployed · 80.1% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 2 filed program accomplishments · $38K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 8 people listed
- Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 6 filing years from 2019 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
- 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.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 56/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 46/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 1/100.