Clio Foundation

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
472488778
IRS 990-EZ coverage
2019–2025
Forms available
Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2018
Location
Leawood, KS, USA
Phone
9135159136
Rating
97
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Humanities Organizations

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$79,597
Expenses
$80,000
Assets
$25,868
Liabilities
$0

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

Leadership & pay

3 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • David Trowbridge (President)

People named in this filing

  • David Trowbridge (President)
  • Joan Browning (Board Member)
  • David Pittenger (Board Member)

Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.

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

Overview

Mission

The Clio Foundation supports efforts to connect the public to history and culture throughout the United States. We offer a free website and mobile application at www.theclio.com that allows organizations to create interpretive walking tours, virtual tours of museums, and other resources. For the second year of the pandemic, our services helped museums, archives, and the general public.

What it reported doing in 2025

We added new user features in 2025, including user experience enhancements, thousands of articles, and enhancements to the location-aware notifications in the mobile application. We also added enhancements to the search features and user experience in the web and mobile app versions of Clio, along with hundreds of free educational resources

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

STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Expenses are high relative to revenue and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 100
  • Transparency & Controls: 100
  • Sustainability: 41
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -0.5%; rating input score 41; 41st percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.32; rating input score 24; 24th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 56; 56th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 23.2% per year; rating input score 100; 83rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 4.6% per year; rating input score 100; 68th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 14.6% per year; rating input score 100; 78th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: Filed governance answers
  • Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $80K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 3 people listed
  • Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 2 filed schedules
  • Filing history: 7 filing years from 2019 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • 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 — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 41/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 24/100.
  • Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 56/100.