Check My Ads Institute
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 871895699
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2022–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-N 2021
- Location
- Washington, DC, USA
- Phone
- 6282191010
- Rating
- 72
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Research Institutes and/or Public Policy Analysis
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,461,222
- Expenses
- $2,055,146
- Assets
- $600,190
- Liabilities
- $27,334
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
8 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Claire Atkin (CEO/Co-Founder)
- Claire Atkin (CEO/Co-Founder)
Highest reported compensation
- Claire Atkin (CEO/Co-Founder): $156,561 total reported compensation
- Nandini Jammi (Chief Strategy Officer): $150,047 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Check My Ads is a non profit 501(c)3 adtech watchdog. We are a non-partisan research and media organization. Our business activities include researching brand safety and advertising fraud within the digital advertising industry. We publish stories to an industry audience of Fortune 500 advertisers, agency representatives, and adtech executives, government officials, and the general public.
What it reported doing in 2024
Working with civil society peers and policymakers, leading and contributing to working groups, and bringing together thought leaders across industry, academia, and civil society to push the digital advertising industry toward transparent and accountable business practices.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 100% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- 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: 81
- Transparency & Controls: 76
- Accountability: 72
- Sustainability: 15
- Growth: 40
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 98.8%; rating input score 99
- Program expense ratio: 70.3%; rating input score 70
- Fundraising efficiency: $5.46 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 92.9%; rating input score 93; 19th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Pass
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Pass
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 66.7%; rating input score 67; 14th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 7 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 78
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Fail
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -40.6%; rating input score 4; 4th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.29; rating input score 14; 14th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.05; rating input score 53; 53rd percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 14.9%; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 42.6% per year; rating input score 100; 94th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -6.8% per year; rating input score 0; 4th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -8.3% per year; rating input score 0; 4th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 98.8% of revenue deployed · 70.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 4 of 6 board members independent · 7 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $1.4M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $157K · 8 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 25 of 26 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors and executive pay
- Filing history: 3 filing years from 2022 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- 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 — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 20/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 4/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 9 not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 14/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 23/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 53/100.