Boyds Mills Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 311203417
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2009–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-T 2025
- Location
- Milanville, PA, USA
- Phone
- 5702531192
- Rating
- 82
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $2,639,991
- Expenses
- $2,659,420
- Assets
- $7,519,834
- Liabilities
- $691,347
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
7 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- GEORGE BROWN (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
People named in this filing
- EMILY HAWKINS (CHAIRPERSON)
- DWIGHT SMITH (TREASURER)
- DIANA FALVO (SECRETARY)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Positively impact children by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inform, educate, and inspire children to become their best selves. Boyds mills hosts workshops and retreats, both at its retreat center in northeast pa, and online, that encourage and nurture storytellers and illustrators who create books for children. Provides scholarships to ease the financial costs.
What it reported doing in 2025
Boyds mills positively impacts children by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inform, educate, and inspire children to become their best selves. We do not take lightly what it means to create engaging, authentic stories for children and youth. We believe that you, as storytellers, have profound impacts on the lives of children. This matters a great deal to us as an organization, and most importantly to our world.for more than 40 years, boyds mills (formerly the highlights foundation) has embraced the core values that serve our mission: excellence, creativity, diversity, and integrity.year after year, online and in-person, our programs, staff, faculty, and scholarships help us bring this mission to you. We offer a range of topics and types of courses, from no-cost webinars to week-long residencies to online intensives. These offerings provide education, support, and encouragement for both beginning and published authors and illustrators, and are led by children's publishing professionals: editors, authors, illustrators, art directors, publishers, agents, academics, and others who are there to help our community realize their creative goals.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 71% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 96% 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
STRONG - 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: 80
- Transparency & Controls: 90
- Accountability: 76
- Sustainability: 48
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 88.6%; rating input score 89
- Program expense ratio: 87.1%; rating input score 87
- Fundraising efficiency: $4.32 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 92.9%; rating input score 93; 14th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 75th 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; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 3 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 43
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Fail
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -0.7%; rating input score 24; 24th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.83; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.09; rating input score 50; 50th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 90; 90th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 12.1% per year; rating input score 100; 67th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 9% per year; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 3.2% per year; rating input score 100; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 88.6% of revenue deployed · 87.1% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 6 of 6 board members independent · 3 of 7 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $2.3M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 7 people listed
- Consistency: 28 of 29 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 16 filing years from 2009 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 12/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 24/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 50/100.