Artemis Institute

What it reported doing in 2025

Yellowstonian founded by todd wilkinson and gus o'keefe, and hosted by artemis institute was launched in april of 2024. In support of the community outreach longtime journalist todd wilkinson is the editor and lead journalist for yellowstonian, with additional collaborations from community members and scientist from the region and beyond. Yellowstonian is devoted to exploring vital issues shaping the future of the greater yellowstone ecosystem and other parts of the wildlife-rich west. Since it officially went live in mid-april 2025 as a special project of artemis institute, yellowstonian's main objective as a public interest, non-profit, conservation journalism site was to build its reach and credibility. With crucial seed money contributed to artemis institute as gifts by a handful of donors, yellowstonian, accessible at yellowstonian.org, enlisted a company to help design a fully-functional web site that featured stories made available free to readers and also easily put into circulation on social media channels. In the eight months of its operation in 2024, yellowstonian's quest to prove its concept included its three principal contributors electing not to take any compensation and instead divert available and limited financial resources into leveraging the impact of yellowstonian content, taking the form of written investigative journalism stories, co-hosting a range of well-attended public events that were also live-streamed, appearing on podcasts and giving lectures at Montana state university. The year, 2025, was a momentous year for yellowstonian and built upon accomplishments of those during our inaugural year of 2024. Organizationally, we continued to leverage our limited human and financial resources by partnering with other entities to expand both our reach, readership, and impact in terms of educating the public about issues often complicated and difficult to understand. Todd attended no less than five dozen meetings in person with scientists, public land managers, conservationists, business owners, farmers, ranchers and others about issues of importance in greater yellowstone. In addition, he interviewed more than 100 different people for three dozen stories he wrote throughout the year, several of them being in-depth investigative reports. Yellowstonian doubled its followers on social media to 40,000, made more than 300 contents posts on facebook and instagram, increased the frequency of its newsletter and todd in turn, was a guest on six different podcasts, some with a global reach. In february, as part of yellowstonian's partnership with an entity called the yellowstone summit, featuring virtual presentations given by dozens of experts and watched by thousands of viewers across the us and world, todd wilkinson interviewed retiring yellowstone winterkeeper steve fuller who spoke about his 50-year tenure in the center of america's first national park. In early april, todd wilkinson joined former Montana gov. Marc racicot and several other montanans at an outdoor community attended by hundreds of citizens in livingston, Montana. Todd's remarks focused on the impacts of actions taken by the department of government efficiency on the function and morale of public employees working for federal agencies that play a prominent role in the greater yellowstone region and northern rockies. Later in april, we co-hosted a live and live-stream event with gallatin valley earth day focused on the challenges of sprawl and the impact it having on both public and private lands in the greater yellowstone ecosystem. We brought together a panel of five different experts comprising a scientific entity specializing in wildlife migrations, a professional land use planner dealing with growth issues in park county, Montana, a former county commissioner from teton county, Idaho, the head of the gallatin valley land trust, and a national expert on inward population migration. It came on the heels of a special report that yellowstonian hel

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 25.6%; rating input score 26
• Program expense ratio: 78.5%; rating input score 78
• Fundraising efficiency: $50.24 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 79; 79th 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: 1 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 14
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Fail
  • Whistleblower policy: Fail
  • Document-retention policy: Fail
  • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Missing
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 67.6%; rating input score 93; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 6.62; rating input score 57; 57th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.01; rating input score 22; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 29%; rating input score 7; 7th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: -11% per year; rating input score 0; 26th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: -9.4% per year; rating input score 0; 31st percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 2.8% per year; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings