Companions and Animals for Reform and Equity Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 850557068
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2020–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Baltimore, MD, USA
- Phone
- 4435195661
- Rating
- 81
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Animal Protection and Welfare
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,145,864
- Expenses
- $4,159,192
- Assets
- $4,467,243
- Liabilities
- $55,507
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
12 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- JAMES EVANS (CEO)
Highest reported compensation
- JAMES EVANS (CEO): $162,215 total reported compensation
- JENNIFER EVANS (COO): $151,015 total reported compensation
- ZORAIDA CORDERO (CHIEF OF STA): $133,409 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
To address organizational and personal biases within animal welfare. To bring diverse voices to animal welfare while also advocating for a more inclusive path to pet adoption. To use evidence-based tools, narratives and insights to inspire organizations to be more inclusive and less biased. All in an effort to save more companion animal lives.
What it reported doing in 2024
Narratives: creating narratives that feature bipoc stories to combat stereotypes and share real life human animal bonding amongst people of color. This is conducted through film that produces public service announcements, short stories, documentaries and a full-length feature. Our narratives are true stories, interviews or based off our research. While we create care centers and document care's growth, we will create a library of media that will reshape the mostly white narrative in the animal welfare industry. Care centers: because care knows proximate leaders are subject matter experts on the challenges facing their communities, care is assisting these community leaders with the long-awaited support they need through grants, legal assistance and augmentation of skills. The care center model will not always include a building. Some will need access to care via transport services. Other organizations will focus on community awareness of issues related to animal care and control, spay & neuter, puppy mills and adoption. And some organizations will deliver services from within a building. Care will be there to provide start up assistance for an organization to grow through and including grants for supplies, vehicles or buildings. Care will also provide assistance with legal fees, marketing tools and fundraising. Every center should and will look different based off the community needs. Training: care has partnered with harvard's project implicit to study implicit bias, and has created a training that involves critical conversations, education and exercises to provide solutions for animal welfare to mitigate their biases and include more people to the save more animals. Through individual zoom talks and workshops, including private conversation with leadership and surveys of full staff shelters and rescues, we were able to curate training sessions. After the first year, we are pivoting to make this more affordable and easily accessible with an online learning platform. We are creating a certification program that has 3 levels, involving history, real world examples, graphics and brief videos so the field can access and learn at their own pace. This is sold to organizations and is also being sponsored through large grants to larger adoption websites. Research: conducting research to mitigate bias and recruit more bipoc leaders in the animal welfare industry. Partnering with educational institutions (harvard and ut) to conduct research and collect data on implicit bias to assist with curriculum development for dei training and narratives. Creating surveys to identify barriers in pet adoption and help create practices and policies to become more open and inclusive. All in an effort save more lives.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 99% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 97% 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. Few specific pay-setting methods are documented in the filing; unanswered boxes are not proof of absence and fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 90
- Transparency & Controls: 67
- Accountability: 95
- Sustainability: 23
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 89%; rating input score 89
- Fundraising efficiency: $11.99 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 44; 44th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 93.3%; rating input score 93; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 0 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 0
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Missing
- Board or committee approval: Missing
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 95.1%; rating input score 95; 42nd 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: 8 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 89
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Fail
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -263%; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.07; rating input score 45; 45th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.01; rating input score 67; 67th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 22.2%; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 46% per year; rating input score 100; 95th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 23.5% per year; rating input score 100; 88th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 37.8% per year; rating input score 100; 94th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 89% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 5 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $3.7M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $162K · 12 people listed · 0 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 31 of 32 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2020 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 9 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 2 filed related-organization links
- 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: Pay-setting controls scored 0/100.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 44/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 0/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: CEO compensation review process not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 45/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 12/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.