Carleton University
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 237088831
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2019–2025
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Ottawa, ON, Canada
- Phone
- +1-613-520-2600
- Rating
- 78
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $582,465,749
- Expenses
- $569,552,868
- Assets
- $1,495,638,078
- Liabilities
- $473,701,390
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
44 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Wisdom Tettey (President and Vice Chancellor)
- Duane McNair (Vice-President (People, Finance, and Operations))
- L Rankin (Provost an Vice president (Academic))
- Suzanne Blanchard (Vice President Students and Enrolment)
- RafiK Goubran (Vice President Research)
Highest reported compensation
- Wisdom Tettey (President and Vice Chancellor): $365,198 total reported compensation
- Larry Kostiuk (Dean): $258,371 total reported compensation
- Isaac Otchere (Professor): $254,886 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Carleton University is a leading research and teaching institution committed to accessible education, interdisciplinary learning, and community engagement.
What it reported doing in 2025
General operations, plant fund, scholarship and bursaries
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 93% 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 91
- Transparency & Controls: 62
- Accountability: 78
- Sustainability: 55
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 93.6%; rating input score 94
- Program expense ratio: 95.2%; rating input score 95
- Fundraising efficiency: $47.58 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 64; 64th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Pass
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Missing
- Board or committee approval: Missing
- Foreign activity oversight: 1 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 12
- Claims monitoring procedures: Pass
- Requires narrative reports: Fail
- Conducts field audits: Fail
- May suspend future funding: Fail
- Requires financial reports: Fail
- Conducts site visits: Fail
- Requires grant agreements: Fail
- May require repayment: Fail
- Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 81st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Limited
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 78.1%; rating input score 78; 13th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 7 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 78
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 2.2%; rating input score 44; 44th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.63; rating input score 62; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.32; rating input score 56; 56th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0.6%; rating input score 81; 81st percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 4% per year; rating input score 100; 30th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 2.7% per year; rating input score 100; 20th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 2.4% per year; rating input score 100; 13th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 2 programs and campaigns described on the official site
- Where the money goes: 93.6% of revenue deployed · 95.2% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 25 of 32 board members independent · 7 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $542M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $365K · 44 people listed · 1 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $63.1M reported
- Consistency: 39 of 39 current checks pass
- Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes foreign activity and executive pay
- Filing history: 7 filing years from 2019 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 18 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 1 filed related-organization link
- 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.
- High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight: 7 of 8 not reported.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 9 not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 44/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 56/100.