Elephant Circle
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 471648218
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2020–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-N 2016
- Location
- Palisade, CO, USA
- Phone
- 3039029402
- Rating
- 79
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Legal Services
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $6,612,739
- Expenses
- $5,692,736
- Assets
- $2,660,766
- Liabilities
- $166,897
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
6 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- LYZ RILEY SANDERS (PRESIDENT)
Highest reported compensation
- INDRA LUSERO (EXECUTIVE DI): $98,201 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Inspired by elephants who give birth within a circle of support, we envision a world where all people have a circle of support for their entire perinatal period. Birth justice occurs when everyone is equally capable of self-determination during the perinatal period, when their self- determination is supported and amplified.
What it reported doing in 2024
Prior to incorporation in 2018, elephant circle was fiscally sponsored for nine years. We see fiscal sponsorship as a key part of movement building and sustainability, and our mission. We call this part of our work the birth justice sustainability hub. We recognize that businesses of all kinds, including non-profits often replicate systems and processes that uphold power imbalances. Fiscal sponsorship is particularly vulnerable to these patterns since it involves business formation with the added complexity of tax law. Our goal is to do fiscal sponsorship in a way that lessens the barriers to entry for innovative projects, interrupts unfair systems, and demonstrates alternative ways of managing change, risk, and power. We believe that people who have been excluded from or neglected by the status quo, and who are directly impacted and most proximate to the problem, hold some of the most important ideas and solutions, and need legal, tax and accounting systems to work for them. We leverage our legal, tax and accounting infrastructure, combine it with our birth justice expertise, and collaborate with mission-aligned people to create a hub that can sustain our collective work.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 72% 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 74
- Transparency & Controls: 86
- Accountability: 79
- Sustainability: 54
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 68.1%; rating input score 68
- Program expense ratio: 79%; rating input score 79
- Fundraising efficiency: $260.43 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 93; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 92.9%; rating input score 93; 13th 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: 4 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 13.9%; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.47; rating input score 16; 16th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.06; rating input score 67; 67th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 1.7%; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 50.4% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 46.5% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 33.8% per year; rating input score 100; 95th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 68.1% of revenue deployed · 79% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 3 of 3 board members independent · 4 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $4.5M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $98K · 6 people listed
- Highest-paid contractors: 2 contractors listed · $304K reported
- Consistency: 36 of 36 current checks pass
- Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2020 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 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.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 7 not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 16/100.