Decoding Dyslexia Mn

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
822161278
IRS 990-EZ coverage
2021–2025
Forms available
Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2020
Location
St Paul, MN, USA
Phone
6123451367
Rating
93
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Alliance/Advocacy Organizations

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$56,606
Expenses
$71,828
Assets
$216,895
Liabilities
$920

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

Leadership & pay

11 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • LAURIE BERG (President)
  • KIMBERLY CARLSEN (President)
  • JASMAN MYERS (Vice President)

People named in this filing

  • MARY J BAUER (Executive Dir.)
  • LAURIE BERG (President)
  • KIMBERLY CARLSEN (President)

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

Decoding Dyslexia Minnesota is a grassroots organization. We strive to include diversity, equity & inclusion practices at the center of our daily work. We commit to using these practices for our organization & our communities. We embrace diversity, equity & inclusion for every person in every community. Our Vision is for students to have equitable literacy instruction that meets their educational needs so they can reach their full potential. Our Mission is to raise dyslexia awareness, empower families to support their children & improve resources for students with dyslexia in Minnesotas educational environments until all can read.

What it reported doing in 2025

The primary audience for Decoding Dyslexia Minnesota (DDMN) is dyslexic students & their parents, families & caregivers. We provide services in the following ways:*Our Partners for Parents program provides one-on-one guidance to families of struggling readers on how to navigate the school system, understand various terms used to describe reading problems & learn how to advocate for their children. Services include but are not limited to one-to-one consultations, review of IEPs & evaluations, prep for IEP meetings, review parent concern letters & help draft conversations with the school. The Partner for Parents Manager provided this service & provided service to 71 families. Each family signs a Hold Harmless document prior to guidance being given.*Parent Talks are live online educational webinars held weekly, approximately one hour in length. They include a variety of presentations on topics of interest to families struggling readers. An open discussion on the subject of dyslexia follows the presentation. In the small group presentations, we help families find resources depending on their children's needs. In 2025, we held 87 Parent Talks attended by 136 parents. The Partner for Parents Manager provided this service. The Executive Director & three Board members assist on occasion.*IEP/504 plan binders are content-rich printed resource that includes educational materials on dyslexia & school IEP & 504 processes. It contains information to help families get appropriate services for their students with dyslexia. This tool allows parents to save & organize assessments, records, reports & correspondence relevant to their childs school IEP or 504 Plan. IEP/504 plan binders are available in English & Spanish. Throughout the community, 226 binders were distributed at 12 events. An additional 43 binder content pages were downloaded from the DDMN website for a total of 269 binders distributed in 2025. Our two employees & our Board Members provide the content for the binders.*In-person outreach - We attended 18 outreach events & reached 911 individuals, to inform & educate them about dyslexia. These included presentations to school groups, teacher groups, community gatherings & professional conferences. Our two employees & our Board Members provide, or attend, outreach events.*Online outreach - The DDMN website provides a comprehensive offering of relevant information, research & links to other resources. Our online presence includes our Facebook page, which has 5000 followers. We also host a private group Facebook page that provides a forum for 1577 parents to interact with other families of dyslexic children & share their lived experiences, advice & resources. In addition, we have 900 followers on Instagram, 830 on Twitter, 343 followers on YouTube & 170 followers on LinkedIn. Our two employees & our Board Members provide content & graphic services for our online outreach.

Operating model

Revenue model
Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent revenue detail to tell how this nonprofit funds its work.
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. Revenue has declined or grown slowly and expenses are high relative to revenue.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 96
  • Transparency & Controls: 100
  • Sustainability: 34
  • Growth: 60

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Program expense ratio: 89.2%; rating input score 89

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: -26.9%; rating input score 18; 18th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.02; rating input score 75; 75th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 28; 28th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 38%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 20.5% per year; rating input score 100; 81st percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: -18.3% per year; rating input score 0; 16th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 5.8% per year; rating input score 100; 59th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 89.2% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: Filed governance answers
  • Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $64K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 11 people listed
  • Consistency: 7 of 7 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 4 filed schedules
  • Filing history: 5 filing years from 2021 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
  • 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 — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 18/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 5/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 28/100.