Amara
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 910577487
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2012–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Seattle, WA, USA
- Phone
- 2062601700
- Rating
- 78
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $9,264,870
- Expenses
- $4,642,661
- Assets
- $12,116,663
- Liabilities
- $583,478
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
18 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- FAHREN JOHNSON (CEO)
- SCARLETT ALDEBOT-GREEN (CEO (END))
- SARA WONG (PRESIDENT)
Highest reported compensation
- DONG NAM (CFO (END)): $152,989 total reported compensation
- SCARLETT ALDEBOT-GREEN (CEO (END)): $82,594 total reported compensation
- FAHREN JOHNSON (CEO): $43,784 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Amara's mission is to ensure that every child in foster care has the love and support of a committed family - as quickly as possible, and for as long as each child needs. Amara has been serving Washington since its founding as medina baby home, a traditional orphanage, in 1921. While amara's services have evolved over the past 100+ years to meet urgent and emergent needs, our focus on supporting children in foster care, adoptees and those who love them has never wavered. Amara served 1,615 parents and 1,412 children in 2024.
What it reported doing in 2024
Family preservation programs: our family preservation programs focus on preventative measures to reduce the factors that lead to the separation of children and parents through child welfare system involvement. Amara addresses root causes of child welfare system involvement through our family resource center, which helps families access resources, financial assistance, and concrete goods so that poverty and lack of support do not push families further into crisis. Family preservation programs also provide support to parents who are at a high risk for having their child(ren) removed from their care, parent focus program, as well as to parents who may be fast-tracked towards reunification, early childhood court program. Furthermore, we support parents who have successfully reunified with their children to advocate for system reform and inform parent supportive programming. Family preservation programs also seek to foment and steward the connection between children and their families of origin through supporting post-adoptive families in maintaining openness with children's extended families and supporting biological parents through some of the nuances of open adoption agreements. Lastly, we provide education and peer support groups both virtually and in person to help improve parent and caregiver wellbeing and skill-building, while also supporting people to build supportive peer networks.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
- 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - 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 reported officer compensation is a large share of total spending, which may reflect staffing concentration.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 67
- Transparency & Controls: 74
- Accountability: 100
- Sustainability: 78
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 69.5%; rating input score 69
- Program expense ratio: 80.9%; rating input score 81
- Fundraising efficiency: $3.87 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 2 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 33
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Pass
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 49.9%; rating input score 92; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.61; rating input score 70; 70th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.05; rating input score 71; 71st percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 6%; rating input score 47; 47th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 5.3% per year; rating input score 100; 41st percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 6.6% per year; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 7.3% per year; rating input score 100; 46th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 69.5% of revenue deployed · 80.9% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 13 of 13 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 2 filed program accomplishments · $3.8M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $153K · 18 people listed · 2 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 32 of 32 current checks pass
- Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes major donors and executive pay
- Filing history: 11 filing years from 2012 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 3 filed money-flow records
- 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.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 12/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 47/100.