Crisis Text Line

Legal name: Crisis Text Line Inc

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
465039599
IRS 990 coverage
2014–2025
Official website data refreshed
Sep 2026
Forms available
Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2013
Location
New York, NY, USA
Phone
3322304008
Rating
77
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Hot Line, Crisis Intervention Services

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$38,489,787
Expenses
$38,608,694
Assets
$31,967,980
Liabilities
$5,531,303

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

Leadership & pay

18 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • DENA TRUJILLO (CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER)
  • LISA FETTERMAN (PRESIDENT)

Highest reported compensation

  • DENA TRUJILLO (CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER): $419,879 total reported compensation
  • MATTHEW VANDERZEE (CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER): $417,938 total reported compensation
  • DANIELLE ADEST (CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER): $367,292 total reported compensation

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

Overview

Mission

Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7, high-quality text-based mental health support and crisis intervention by empowering a community of trained volunteers to support people in their moments of need. We are a nonjudgmental organization that champions mental well-being and aims to support people of every race, ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, socioeconomic status, and other backgrounds. We use empathy and active listening to empower our texters to identify their own strengths and coping strategies in moments of crisis. We listen to and learn from our community to help us continuously improve our service. Our Mission.

What it reported doing in 2025

Crisis text line's mission relies on innovative technology to support the 24/7 texting and chat mental health crisis intervention platform. The technology team is responsible for coding, refining, and supporting the crisis text line texting and chat platform as well as maintaining and updating a learning management system as part of the platform. The team's role includes engineering, product, design, data, and analytics.crisis text line continues to develop enhanced architecture designs for the platform as well as testing and developing a generative ai conversation simulator to improve training for volunteers. Crisis text line technology department creates and supports customized and integrated platform solutions to support the national 988 suicide & crisis lifeline as well as our partners.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 89% 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. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 76
  • Transparency & Controls: 72
  • Accountability: 94
  • Sustainability: 27
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 80.8%; rating input score 81
  • Program expense ratio: 79.7%; rating input score 80
  • Fundraising efficiency: $12.04 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 39; 39th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
    • Compensation committee: Missing
    • Independent consultant: Pass
    • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
    • Written employment contract: Missing
    • Compensation survey or study: Pass
    • Board or committee approval: Pass
  • 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; 76th percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 90%; rating input score 90; 19th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: Pass
    • 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: -0.3%; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.83; rating input score 24; 24th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.17; rating input score 55; 55th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 8%; rating input score 35; 35th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 18.4% per year; rating input score 100; 86th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 15.2% per year; rating input score 100; 86th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 11.4% per year; rating input score 100; 73rd percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • What they do: 2 operating locations identified
  • Where the money goes: 80.8% of revenue deployed · 79.7% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 9 of 10 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $30.8M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $420K · 18 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $4.6M reported
  • Consistency: 33 of 34 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, and executive pay
  • Filing history: 12 filing years from 2014 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 9 filed money-flow records
  • Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
  • 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.
  • Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

  • High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight: 7 of 8 not reported.
  • Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 39/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 20/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 24/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 35/100.
  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • Review — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 55/100.