Big Brothers Big Sisters Inc

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
540702502
IRS 990 coverage
2015–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025
Location
Richmond, VA, USA
Phone
8042614940
Rating
76
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$625,066
Expenses
$761,069
Assets
$429,733
Liabilities
$56,199

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

21 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • MEGHAN BARBATO (PAST PRESIDENT)
  • CLARK DUGGER (PRESIDENT)
  • ELLIE MARTINEZ (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)

Highest reported compensation

  • ELLIE MARTINEZ (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $118,450 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

Creates and supports one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth throughout Central and Eastern Virginia. BBBS provides professionally supported community based and site based mentoring, workforce readiness programming, and group mentoring opportunities that connect young people with caring adult mentors and positive role models. Services include volunteer recruitment, screening, training, youth enrollment, thoughful matching, ongoing case management, and outcome evaluation to ensure safe, high quality mentoring relationships. Through these programs, the organization helps young people strenthen social-emotional skills, improve educational outcomes, build positive relationships, and develop the confidence and resilience needed to succeed in school, work, and life.

What it reported doing in 2025

Big Brothers Big Sisters provides youth with caring, consistent, and compassionate mentors. Mentors (Bigs) and youth (Littles) focus on individual goals for positive youth development: build social skills, increase academic achievement, and create healthy lifestyles. In 2022, over 800 lives were impacted throughout Greater Richmond, Greater Virginia Peninsula, Hampton Roads, and Tri-Cities. Youth are served through Community-Based Mentoring, Site-Based (School-Based) Mentoring. 2022 results show that while youth continued to navigate the effects of COVID, mentoring services proved to be impactful. Over 75% of youth reported stronger peer relationships, over 90% of Littles stayed on track or improved academically and 19% of Littles experienced fewer depressive symptoms.

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.

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 expenses are high relative to revenue.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 76
  • Transparency & Controls: 86
  • Accountability: 95
  • Sustainability: 17
  • Growth: 0

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 89.6%; rating input score 90
  • Program expense ratio: 72.8%; rating input score 73
  • Fundraising efficiency: $4.96 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 16; 16th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 93.3%; rating input score 93; 24th 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: 7 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 88
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: Fail
    • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -21.8%; rating input score 6; 6th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.56; rating input score 27; 27th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.13; rating input score 31; 31st percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 15.6%; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: -2.5% per year; rating input score 0; 10th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: -2.9% per year; rating input score 0; 6th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: -1.2% per year; rating input score 0; 12th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 89.6% of revenue deployed · 72.8% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 20 of 20 board members independent · 7 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $554K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $118K · 21 people listed
  • Consistency: 30 of 32 current checks pass · 2 findings to review
  • Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors
  • Filing history: 11 filing years from 2015 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.
  • Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

  • High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 16/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 6/100.
  • High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 27/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: CEO compensation review process not reported.
  • High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule D expense reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 23/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 31/100.