Austin Together Fund
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 921954721
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2023–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Austin, TX, USA
- Phone
- 3123150807
- Rating
- 75
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Management & Technical Assistance
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $810,813
- Expenses
- $648,972
- Assets
- $421,509
- Liabilities
- $38,037
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
16 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- KAREN LASHELLE (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
Highest reported compensation
- KAREN LASHELLE (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $166,400 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Austin together enables sustained collaborations that strengthen the nonprofit community to create better outcomes for central texans through our unique grant and community engagement model.
What it reported doing in 2025
Grant making-austin together is a new 501 (c)3 stand-alone entity whose mission is to enable sustained collaboration with proven process, smart funding, and wrap-around support. We do this as an inclusive partner, with confidentiality and an unwavering focus on quality outcomes. Our goal is to support the right partnerships through a thoughtful and supported process. Sustained collaboration covers a variety of long-lasting strategic partnerships that change the business model of two or more nonprofit organizations. We meet with 80+ organizations per year to discuss the possibility of sustained collaboration grant support (see schedule o for grant type explanations). The vast majority of grantees who start with seed or exploration grants continue to move through grant phases and work towards planning and eventually implementation. Most grantees take more than 2 years to move through phases to completion. All expenses supported operations as we moved to a stand-alone entity.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 94% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 59% for direct work, and 41% for grants.
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 total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 77
- Transparency & Controls: 70
- Accountability: 79
- Sustainability: 48
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 71.4%; rating input score 71
- Program expense ratio: 89.2%; rating input score 89
- Fundraising efficiency: $38.99 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 71; 71st percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 90.9%; rating input score 91; 10th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Missing
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 92.5%; rating input score 92; 44th percentile among comparable filings
- 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: 4 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 20%; rating input score 72; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.65; rating input score 31; 31st percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.09; rating input score 36; 36th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 25.6%; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 62.9% per year; rating input score 100; 96th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 54.3% per year; rating input score 100; 96th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 73.4% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 71.4% of revenue deployed · 89.2% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 15 of 15 board members independent · 4 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $579K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $166K · 16 people listed · 1 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 22 of 23 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 3 filing years from 2023 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 10 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 10 filed related-organization links
- 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 — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 7 not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 31/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 10/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 36/100.