Friends of Baxter State Park

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
010535846
IRS 990 coverage
2020–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025, Form 990-N 2007
Location
Belfast, ME, USA
Phone
2079753787
Rating
70
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Natural Resources Conservation and Protection

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$506,876
Expenses
$480,497
Assets
$810,484
Liabilities
$33,155

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

16 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Aaron Megquier (Executive Director)
  • Diana Furukawa (Director and Vice President)
  • Hope Rowan (Director and President)

Highest reported compensation

  • Aaron Megquier (Executive Director): $95,600 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

Friends of Baxter State Park strives to inspire passion for the Park's wild character in the spirit of Percival Baxter. We promote exemplary use, natural resource stewardship, and a healthy Katahdin region to ensure the Park forever remains a refuge.

What it reported doing in 2025

Education and Outreach: We offered an expanded Maine Youth Wilderness Leadership Program which enabled twenty Maine high school students to experience a nine-day leadership training program in spectacular wilderness. Participants in this program learned from specialists in botany, photography, geology, environmental advocacy, watercolor painting, storytelling, history, and recreation. The goal of this program is to inspire and cultivate the next generation of Maine's environmental leaders. We sent ten issues of our email newsletter to a mailing list of approximately 2,700 people. We published the 2026 Baxter State Park calendar in partnership with Baxter State Park and a local company. We revised and printed 10,000 copies of our Know Before You Go brochure to be distributed statewide. We produced and distributed eleven podcast episodes containing over ten hours of audio content focused on Baxter State Park. We hosted two webinars, one focused on iNaturalist and the other focused on a new book called Loving the North Woods. We hosted three evening gatherings in Patten, Freeport, and Portland for our members and the general public.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 75% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
Distribution model
Direct operator. The filing allocates 98% 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

SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and most voting board members are independent. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and a relatively small share of total spending goes to programs.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 52
  • Transparency & Controls: 81
  • Accountability: 90
  • Sustainability: 46
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 58%; rating input score 58
  • Program expense ratio: 57.1%; rating input score 57
  • Fundraising efficiency: $3.49 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 85.7%; rating input score 86; 3rd 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; 64th 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: Fail
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 5.2%; rating input score 45; 45th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.69; rating input score 59; 59th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.04; rating input score 46; 46th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 19.9%; rating input score 16; 16th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 11.5% per year; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 4.8% per year; rating input score 100; 37th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 14.5% per year; rating input score 100; 68th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 58% of revenue deployed · 57.1% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 14 of 14 board members independent · 6 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $274K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $96K · 16 people listed
  • Consistency: 43 of 44 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors
  • Filing history: 6 filing years from 2020 to 2025
  • 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 — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 58/100.
  • Review — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 57/100.
  • High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 10/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 8 not reported.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 45/100.
  • Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 59/100.
  • Review — Transparency & Controls: Schedule G fundraiser detail did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 16/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 46/100.