Friends of the Vervet Monkey Foundation
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 862117021
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2022–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2021
- Location
- Scottsdale, AZ, USA
- Rating
- 96
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Alliance/Advocacy Organizations
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $130,836
- Expenses
- $125,675
- Assets
- $16,492
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
3 people listed
People named in this filing
- Lana Bru (Director)
- Trisha Fravel (Director)
- Dave Du Toit (Director)
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
To educate on primates, particularly vervet monkeys, operate on charitable purposes and support the Vervet Monkey Foundation in their critical work to protect and prevent the extinction of these primates in South Africa.
What it reported doing in 2025
Fifth year in operation as a US Charity with social media fundraising, Patreon, Teespring merchandise sales and general paypal donations to support our work. We rescued 32 monkey in 2025. 24 were vervet orphans. Each of these orphans were successfully rehabilitated and introduced to a foster monkey mom and semi wild troop on our VMF site with the help of our local staff and international volunteers. When possible we release these monkeys back to their troop and surroundings, in 2025 we were able to support and then release 5 monkeys back to their natural habitat with 3 rescues who stayed on site at the sanctuary due to special needs or an inability to find their troop of origin. Continue to create public awareness of the monkey's situations and threats in South Africa. Weekly youtube 1 hr video provides progress updates; Instagram and Facebook provide daily photos, videos and reels of on hand work supporting the monkeys at the various stages of their rehabilitation. Weekly livestreams are viewed by those around the world to look at the current orphans in human care preparing for the Foster Mum program, troop camera livestreams. Instagram lives were completed and many followers created their own personal Facebook fundraiser as a part of their birthdays or other celebrations. Support was focused on fully renovating a large cabin based on generous donations making it the perfect accomodations for families who come to the VMF to volunteer. We experienced significant weather impacts with the summer becoming hotter and drier - funding was directed towards large A-frame structures within the troop enclosure that provide additional shade for the extremely hot spring days when tree foliage is not existent. We were also hit by a signficant storm that damaged multiple buildings including our Sick Bay hospital, enclosure structures for monkey safety and power/wifi cables. A large amount of donations were used to repair and replace damaged infrastructure along with repairs for the heavy flooding that followed that storm.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 93% 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. Expenses are high relative to revenue and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 98
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 40
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 96.1%; rating input score 96
- Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 3.9%; rating input score 42; 42nd 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 74; 74th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 36.6% per year; rating input score 100; 86th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 14.4% per year; rating input score 100; 74th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 4.5% per year; rating input score 100; 41st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 96.1% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $126K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 3 people listed
- Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2022 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: Resolved incoming and outgoing counterparties from filed money flows.
- 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.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 42/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 14/100.