Disagree Better Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 993641251
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2025–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2024
- Location
- Cottonwood Heights, UT, USA
- Phone
- 2028627819
- Rating
- 67
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Citizen Participation
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $2,763,181
- Expenses
- $392,560
- Assets
- $2,454,639
- Liabilities
- $808
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
People named in this filing
- Owen Fuller (Chair)
- Spencer Hall (Secretary)
- Jon Cox (Treasurer)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Disagree Better's mission is to reshape political behavior by championing healthy conflict as a vital pathway to better policy, increased trust in leaders, and reduced polarization. We do this through leadership modeling of constructive conflict by cultural and political leaders in public awareness campaigns and high-profile public events.
What it reported doing in 2025
In 2025 Disagree Better, Inc. evaluated our positionality in the broader nonprofit ecosystem by conducting extensive stakeholder engagement and designed our flagship programs focused on leadership modeling of constructive conflict as a means of reducing polarization and fostering civic trust. To advance our purpose of promoting social cohesion and educating the public on constructive civic engagement, our 2025 programmatic achievements focused on two core areas:1. National Cross-partisan Media Campaign: We produced high-impact Public Service Announcements (PSAs) featuring prominent leaders across party lines. This media campaign will be launched in 2026 and will reach an estimated 10 million Americans across digital and social platforms, establishing a new 'permission structure' for civility in public discourse.2. High Profile Events: We sponsored multiple high-level events featuring cross-partisan pairings of leaders modeling disagreement done right and discussing the need for greater civility in our culture. These events were highly attended, covered by mainstream media, and livestreamed, reaching at least five million people nationwide.To ensure programmatic efficacy, we partner with research partners to test our efficacy and impact, including research from Stanford Politics and Social Change Lab validating our model by demonstrating that exposure to our bipartisan PSAs significantly reduced viewers' partisan animosity, increased conversational receptiveness to opposing views, and increased cross-party trust, without causing reputational backlash for participating leaders.Through these combined efforts, Disagree Better worked to strengthen democratic norms and provided millions of Americans with the behavioral modeling and educational tools necessary to reduce polarization.
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
SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and most voting board members are independent. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 35
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 88
- Sustainability: 92
- Growth: 60
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 9.5%; rating input score 9
- Program expense ratio: 65.3%; rating input score 65
- Fundraising efficiency: $40.65 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 76; 76th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- 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: 5 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 71
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Fail
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 85.8%; rating input score 98; 98th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 6.25; rating input score 84; 84th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 90; 90th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 90; 90th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: Limited
- Revenue growth: 186% per year; rating input score 100; 100th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 186.9% per year; rating input score 100; 100th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 9.5% of revenue deployed · 65.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 5 board members independent · 5 of 7 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $256K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 5 people listed
- Highest-paid contractors: 1 contractor listed · $154K reported
- Consistency: 19 of 19 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: Resolved incoming and outgoing counterparties from filed money flows.
- 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 — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 9/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 7 not reported.