Diener Education Fund
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 454945724
- IRS 990-PF coverage
- 2017–2024
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2016, Form 990-PF 2024
- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
- Phone
- 2176494335
- Rating
- 50
- Verdict
- MIXED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Educational Services and Schools - Other
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $120,000
- Expenses
- $86,326
Source: IRS Form 990-PF. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Overview
Mission
The Diener Education Fund (DEF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded with the mission of re-imagining higher education to better serve the changing needs of students and professors, through Noba’s free online platform providing high-quality, flexibly structured educational materials.
Noba is a free online platform providing high-quality, flexibly structured textbooks and educational materials. DEF frames this work as re-imagining higher education to better serve the changing needs of students and professors, with goals including reducing students’ financial burden, enabling instructors to customize educational content, and further opening education by making information widely available to people of all backgrounds.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 100% of the foundation's positive operating resources came from contributions.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The foundation carried out 100% of its reported charitable disbursements directly.
The verdict
MIXED - A large share of available resources goes to charitable grants and the filed numbers largely add up. A relatively small share of spending goes to grants and the filing does not identify all grant recipients.
Rating breakdown
- Grant Deployment: 100
- Cost Efficiency: 0
- Transparency: 0
- Compliance: 100
- Endowment Health: NotEnoughData
Detailed rating inputs
Grant Deployment
- Grant deployment ratio: 100%; rating input score 100; 73rd percentile among comparable filings
Cost Efficiency
- Grant expense ratio: 0%; rating input score 0; 21st percentile among comparable filings
Transparency
- Grant recipient disclosure: Scored; rating input score 0
Compliance
- Part VII-B activity disclosures: 19 of 19 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Property sale or exchange with a disqualified person: Pass
- Borrowing from or lending to a disqualified person: Pass
- Goods, services, or facilities involving a disqualified person: Pass
- Compensation paid to a disqualified person: Pass
- Assets transferred to a disqualified person: Pass
- Payment to a government official: Pass
- Uncorrected prior self-dealing: Pass
- Prior-year undistributed income: Pass
- Excess business holdings: Pass
- Investments that may jeopardize charitable purposes: Pass
- Uncorrected prior-year jeopardizing investments: Pass
- Attempt to influence legislation: Pass
- Attempt to influence an election: Pass
- Grants to individuals: Pass
- Grants to organizations: Pass
- Spending for a noncharitable purpose: Pass
- Funds received for a personal-benefit contract: Pass
- Premiums paid on a personal-benefit contract: Pass
- Prohibited tax-shelter transaction: Pass
- Filing consistency checks: 10; rating input score 100
Endowment Health
- Endowment-health comparison: Limited
Details
- What they fund: Mission, programs, and operating context captured from the official website.
- Where the money goes: Financial trends and filed revenue, expense, asset, and liability detail
- Payout: At least 100% grant deployment rate
- Trustees: Filed trustees detail
- Self-dealing: 100% of reviewed questions answered “No”
- Investments: Filed investments detail
- Consistency: 10 of 10 current checks pass
- Schedules: 1 filed schedules
- Filing history: 8 filing years from 2017 to 2024
- 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 — Cost Efficiency: Grant expense ratio scored 0/100.
- High — Transparency: Grant recipient disclosure scored 0/100.