Forward Stride

What it reported doing in 2024

Personal development (volunteer, professional development, equine assisted learning) our volunteer program provides opportunities for everyone over the age of 12 to give back to our organization and learn new skills. We had 135 volunteers per week and about 237 total individuals throughout the year. These volunteers help with our clinical services, inclusive equestrian sports and assist with caring for our herd of therapy horses and ponies totaling 15,613 service hours. Our professional development program continued to provide mentoring to 2 path intl. Certified therapeutic riding instructors. Equine assisted learning (eal) is an experiential learning approach that promotes the development of life skills for educational, professional and personal goals through equine-assisted activities. Some of the learning included communication, body language, group dynamics and problem solving. We partnered with victory academy and served 9 youth through this partnership. We also partnered with nara (native american rehabilitation association). Youth from their residential treatment program came once a week through the year and we served 86 youth total. One final partnership we had was with the janus youth program and maclaren youth correctional facility. We spent 7 weeks taking two horses to maclaren youth correctional facility providing groundwork and horsemanship skills to 8 youth. In the fall of 2023 we launched a new subset of the eal program, our equine assisted coaching program. This program is facilitated by a certified life coach and a path intl. Equine specialist in mental health and learning. We offered 8 workshops with themes around setting intentions, mindfulness, confidence building and leadership and served over 30 individuals. This program's revenue and expenses are collected under the umbrella of eal. To suport the continued health and longevity of our herd and facility, we made updates and improvements to several horse pastures and arena spaces: (1) each turnout pasture has two shelters that have been made into tunnels, with the support posts cemented into the ground. This provided more structural stability for the shelters and gave each horse in theses pastures a separtate area to stay dry in wet weather. (2) expanded barn gs pasture space by conneting it to g1 and adding the g2 pass-through, which also has its own shelter. This allowed for more space for the herd in this pasture to roam and to spread out for meal times, and the addition of sand and pea gravel areas reduced the amount of mud formed in this pasture. (3) removed old hogs fuel from paddocks at barns i, h, and g to decrease the overall amount of mud in these paddocks. (4) july 2024 saw the creation of the noble shelter at the arena space near pasture d. This proviced a dry, covered, confidential space for mental health sessions. We are pleased to annouce the naming of this arena space: the pdxlan arena (5) removed the a & b garrison arena from the hay barn, making room for more hay and allowing us to utlitze the pull-through space in the storage barn more efficiently. The panels from the garrison arena were moved to section off areas of the facility marked for authorized personnel only, making the area safer for humans and horses.these facility improvements are keeping our horses and humans happy and safe, which ensures we can offer our services at the highest quality possible.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 73.1%; rating input score 73
• Program expense ratio: 78.2%; rating input score 78
• Fundraising efficiency: $6.29 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 23; 23rd 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: 6 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 75
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • 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: Fail
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 6.5%; rating input score 54; 54th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.45; rating input score 70; 70th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.63; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 5.8%; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 7.8% per year; rating input score 100; 55th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 4.9% per year; rating input score 100; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 18.4% per year; rating input score 100; 79th percentile among comparable filings