Expand Democracy Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 332949625
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2025–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- Takoma Park, MD, USA
- Phone
- 2027501620
- Rating
- 86
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Research Institutes and Public Policy Analysis
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $79,162
- Expenses
- $70,247
- Assets
- $8,915
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
12 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Rob Richie (President)
People named in this filing
- Rob Richie (President)
- Lan Nguyen (Chair)
- Susannah Wellford (Vice-chair)
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
Expand Democracy studies and offers policy solutions designed to support and advance a democracy of, by, and for the people. We spark consideration of promising pro-democracy ideas and strategies. We focus on the United States, but learn from policies and conversations in other nations.
What it reported doing in 2025
Expand Democracy had a strong opening year in our efforts to study and offer policy solutions designed to support and advance a democracy of, by, and for the people. Those efforts included the following. (1) Lifting up and evaluating ideas: We profiled nearly 100 ideas in our Substack posts and Democracy Lab podcast, authored more than 20 national commentaries, and published three new academic articles on democracy. (2) The Democracy Exchange Network (DEN): Our growing network of 175+ reform leaders, scholars, and philanthropists meets monthly to evaluate timely proposals and offer support. We hosted eleven guests, surfacing insights and building pathways from innovation to implementation. (3) Advisory groups of election officials, advocates, and scholars: We held multiple meetings with our impressive election administrators group to evaluate how proposals might affect election officials. We formed an advisory group of scholars to assist in evaluating ideas. (4) We supported other mission-aligned nonprofit organizations in their work around expanding democracy where our special skills and experience could help, including working on a book about ranked choice voting, supporting a technological innovation for administering ranked choice voting elections, and assisting aligned groups and donors with research, writing and advice on communications, strategy, and policy.
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. Total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown and reported officer compensation is a large share of total spending, which may reflect staffing concentration.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 88
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 41
- Growth: NotEnoughData
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 84.4%; rating input score 84
- Program expense ratio: 95%; rating input score 95
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: 11.3%; rating input score 62; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.13; rating input score 14; 14th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 82.6%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: Limited
- Revenue growth: Limited
- Asset growth: Limited
Details
- Where the money goes: 84.4% of revenue deployed · 95% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $67K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 12 people listed
- Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- 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 — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 14/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 1/100.