Animals as Natural Therapy
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 911939165
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2010–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Bellingham, WA, USA
- Phone
- 3606713509
- Rating
- 79
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Human Service Organizations
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $555,882
- Expenses
- $571,225
- Assets
- $127,738
- Liabilities
- $308,796
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
8 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- JAIME ARNETT (EXECUTIVE DI): $78,177 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Animals as natural therapy (ant) offers therapeutic experiential learning programs based on the knowledge that animals can assist humans in the learning of important life skills: respect for self and others, trust- building, and clear communication.
What it reported doing in 2025
Animals as natural therapy provides mental and behavioral health services to youth, veterans and elders through animal-assisted therapy and mentorship. What began as simple human-animal interactions with young people in 1999, has developed into a highly sought after and well-respected therapeutic model. Ant offers a variety of programs in response to specific community needs: a) the safety net program, which was created in response to the need for alternative interventions for youth for whom traditional therapy was ineffective, unaffordable, or unavailable, now serves between 350-400 youth per year. It also includes school workshops on leadership, bully awareness and self-confidence. B) the new horizons program, a collaborative effort with seamar visions chemical dependency treatment center, provides therapeutic services for 60 teen women struggling with chemical dependency from throughout Washington state. C) the eagle program provides equine assisted experiential learning services to a dozen veterans yearly. Ant has developed a proven model in all programs that uses animals to help a person build trust, respect, and self-confidence. In turn, participants find hope and healing as they learn to manage their own behaviors and negotiate healthy relationships. The experiential component enables participants to physically explore their strengths, weaknesses, and options as they handle challenging situations that the animals present, and success in this effort ultimately shifts their beliefs in their own capabilities.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 69% 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
SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 77
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 74
- Sustainability: 18
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 84.5%; rating input score 85
- Program expense ratio: 82.3%; rating input score 82
- Fundraising efficiency: $5.75 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- 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; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 3 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 38
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -2.8%; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.22; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 2.42; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 13.7%; rating input score 28; 28th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 3% per year; rating input score 100; 27th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 4.6% per year; rating input score 100; 35th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 14.5% per year; rating input score 100; 68th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 84.5% of revenue deployed · 82.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 7 of 7 board members independent · 3 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $470K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $78K · 8 people listed
- Consistency: 29 of 29 current checks pass
- Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 16 filing years from 2010 to 2025
- 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.
- Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 7 not reported.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 19/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 23/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 12/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 1/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 28/100.