Weta
Legal name: Greater Washington Educational Telecommunications Association Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 530242992
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2010–2024
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-T 2024
- Location
- Arlington, VA, U.S.A
- Phone
- 7039982778
- Rating
- 80
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Standard
- Sector
- Media, Communications Organizations
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $148,406,874
- Expenses
- $127,057,614
- Assets
- $229,440,735
- Liabilities
- $20,462,104
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
46 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Sharon P Rockefeller (President & CEO)
- Miguel E Monteverde (Senior Vice President & General Manager, WETA Greater Washin)
- Sara Just (Senior Vice President & Senior Executive Producer, NewsHour)
Highest reported compensation
- Sharon P Rockefeller (President & CEO): $797,893 total reported compensation
- Geoffrey Bennett (Co-Anchor and Co-Managing Editor for PBS News Hour): $573,497 total reported compensation
- Amna N Werdel (Co-Anchor and Co-Managing Editor for PBS News Hour): $573,233 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
WETA is the leading public broadcasting station in the nation's capital and the second-largest producing station for PBS. Our mission is to educate, entertain, and inspire our community through high-quality television, radio, and digital content.
What it reported doing in 2024
Online and community resources - weta builds extensive educational resources in conjunction with the national television content weta produces to support teachers and lifelong learners. For lifelong learners, weta creates over 50 events a year to engage the public with screenings, panel discussions, and interactive virtual events to further civic dialogue and engagement, explore the many stories of the history, people and places of our culture, and celebrate the arts. Pbs news student reporting labs engages students from across the country in learning about journalism and news production. Weta is the broadcast home of "it's academic," showcasing talented quiz teams from high schools across the region. Weta also creates literacy resources, including readingrockets.org for struggling young readers; colorincolorado.org, bilingual resources for parents and teachers of english-language learners; ldonline.org, the leading website on learning disabilities and adhd for parents, teachers, and students; adlit.org, supporting literacy of adolescent readers; and reading universe, reading instruction tools for grade-school teachers. Weta also offers brainline.org, the comprehensive source for brain-injury information. In conjunction with the broadcast children's program offerings, the station engages with teachers, parents, daycare providers, and community groups to extend the literacy resources, including digital at-home learning tools from pbs and direct service literacy training.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 95% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 99% 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 68
- Transparency & Controls: 85
- Accountability: 94
- Sustainability: 68
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 67.9%; rating input score 68
- Program expense ratio: 72.8%; rating input score 73
- Fundraising efficiency: $14.58 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 89.5%; rating input score 89; 4th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 4 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 67
- Compensation committee: Pass
- Independent consultant: Pass
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Pass
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 90.9%; rating input score 91; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 96.9%; rating input score 97; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 8 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 89
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 14.4%; rating input score 81; 81st percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.81; rating input score 60; 60th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.09; rating input score 84; 84th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 5%; rating input score 17; 17th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 3.6% per year; rating input score 100; 28th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 5.1% per year; rating input score 100; 44th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 4.2% per year; rating input score 100; 29th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 12 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 1 operating location identified
- Where the money goes: 67.9% of revenue deployed · 72.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 31 of 32 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $92.4M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $798K · 46 people listed · 4 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $5.7M reported
- Consistency: 39 of 41 current checks pass · 2 findings to review
- Schedules: 9 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 14 filing years from 2010 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 86 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 73 filed related-organization links
- 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.
- Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 51/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Form 990 shared with the board not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 17/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Schedule R controlled transactions itemized did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Grant Readiness: Federal audit findings: this organization reported findings in its latest federal Single Audit.