Earth Advantage

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
202587074
IRS 990 coverage
2010–2024
Forms available
Form 990 2024
Location
Portland, OR, USA
Phone
5039687160
Rating
83
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Home Improvement and Repairs

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$14,155,430
Expenses
$14,583,179
Assets
$6,468,001
Liabilities
$5,012,371

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

15 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • DAVID HESLAM (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)

Highest reported compensation

  • DAVID HESLAM (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $199,984 total reported compensation
  • ANTHONY ROY (MANAGING DIRECTOR): $164,735 total reported compensation
  • REBECCA HEILIG (DIRECTOR OF CARBON FREE CONSTRUCTION): $149,088 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

Earth advantage is focused on advancing a more informed and humane housing market.we work to ensure the us housing market recognizes the elements of homes that create climate risk and values the characteristics of homes that provide (see schedule o)

What it reported doing in 2024

Education: earth advantage offers educational programs that include workforce development training for historically marginalized populations and technical training for existing professionals across the construction, remodeling, and real estate industries. Additionally, earth advantage offers professional accreditation regarding green building expertise for contractors, designers, realtors and appraisers in several states. Green building registry: the green building registry is a software as a service (saas) platform providing the real estate market with verified green home data. Earth advantage developed this software in order to allow public access to green home data as well as to provide an application programming interface (api) to real estate multiple listing services for real-time data population of real estate listings. The software allows energy assessors to pull data from verified sources like the u.s. Department of energy home energy score and generate streamlined, market-facing home labels for use by home sellers, home buyers and real estate and finance professionals.research and policy consulting: earth advantage undertakes building science research on building and remodeling best practices. The organization was selected by the national renewable energy laboratory (nrel) as a residential subject matter expert organization and supports ongoing research project activity. Earth advantage supports building performance standards policy processes in Oregon through a grant from the us department of energy's building technology office (bto) resilient and efficient codes implementation (reci) program. Zero coalition: zero coalition was established in 2017, to address the need to advance home construction practices in Oregon. Earth advantage gathered several like- minded nonprofits to form the zero energy ready Oregon coalition specifically focused on advancing Oregon building codes in alignment with executive order 17-20.in addition, earth advantage works in partnership with clearesult to promote the energy trust of Oregon residential program. Earth advantage also serves as the fiscal sponsor to enercity collaborative, which was established to extend the financial, environmental, and health benefits of a clean energy economy to specific communities.

Operating model

Revenue model
Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
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. Expenses are high relative to revenue and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 83
  • Transparency & Controls: 84
  • Accountability: 95
  • Sustainability: 19
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 94.8%; rating input score 95
  • Program expense ratio: 92%; rating input score 92
  • Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: 4 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 67
    • Compensation committee: Pass
    • Independent consultant: Missing
    • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
    • Written employment contract: Pass
    • Compensation survey or study: Pass
    • Board or committee approval: Pass
  • 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; 66th 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: Pass
    • Other executive compensation review process: Fail
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -3%; rating input score 21; 21st percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.44; rating input score 13; 13th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.77; rating input score 15; 15th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 7.3%; rating input score 34; 34th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 18.8% per year; rating input score 100; 89th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 10.5% per year; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 13.1% per year; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 94.8% of revenue deployed · 92% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 7 of 7 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $13.4M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $200K · 15 people listed · 4 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Highest-paid contractors: 3 contractors listed · $931K reported
  • Consistency: 32 of 32 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors and executive pay
  • Filing history: 13 filing years from 2010 to 2024
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 7 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.

Key Signals

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

  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 21/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 13/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 15/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 34/100.