Fostering Great Ideas
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 274622960
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2018–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-N 2013
- Location
- Greenville, SC, USA
- Phone
- 8645675216
- Rating
- 87
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Foster Care
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $934,367
- Expenses
- $823,129
- Assets
- $956,760
- Liabilities
- $16,824
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
9 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- DAVID WHITE (CEO)
Highest reported compensation
- DAVID WHITE (CEO): $63,372 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
To improve the lives of children in foster care.
What it reported doing in 2024
Aspire: when youth age out of foster care, there are significant challenges. They are often on their own, lacking family support for their journey. Many students work to support themselves, and if they attend college, they are living paycheck to paycheck and have excessive financial pressure. The added financial stress to maintain college housing can add significant pressure to these youth in college. Many youth will fall behind in their academics and lose hope without a caring and consistent adult to encourage goal-setting and planning for next steps after high school. Aspire encourages youth to graduate from high school and then attend and excel in college by providing accountability and support throughout their academic experience. Through consistent meetings with our education advocate and peer gatherings focused on team-building, youth begin to visualize a future for themselves. They graduate from high school, apply to college programs, and find their own pathway to success.
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.
The verdict
STRONG - 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: 85
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 90
- Sustainability: 57
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 81.8%; rating input score 82
- Program expense ratio: 91.3%; rating input score 91
- Fundraising efficiency: $76.95 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 84; 84th 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: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 11.9%; rating input score 65; 65th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.16; rating input score 47; 47th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.02; rating input score 64; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 7.7%; rating input score 45; 45th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 17.4% per year; rating input score 100; 79th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 18.2% per year; rating input score 100; 83rd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 17.6% per year; rating input score 100; 78th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 81.8% of revenue deployed · 91.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 8 of 8 board members independent · 6 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $751K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $63K · 9 people listed
- Consistency: 24 of 24 current checks pass
- Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 6 filing years from 2018 to 2024
- 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.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 47/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 45/100.