Hawaiian Volcano Education and Resilience Institute

What it reported doing in 2025

HVERI's newest program builds community resilience by helping youth develop competence, confidence, connection, character, and compassion as key outcomes to help them overcome severe stress and high-risk conditions. Leaning on the Volcano Education and Digital Resilience programs to provide opportunities, youth are empowered to be involved in decision-making, develop leadership skills, meaningfully engage with community and make real contributions, develop and test new knowledge and practical skills, experience success, develop positive and supportive relationships with adults and peers, and engage with adults around common goals. Over time, facilitators provide supports that create a safe physical and emotional environment for youth with clear appropriate boundaries and guidance, facilitate supportive youth-adult relationships, and engage family, school, and community as partners with youth. They help overcome mistakes, encourage a sense of belonging, build new skills, and enable youth to better their communities. The "Volcano Outreach Traveling Toolkit" offered up to 8 educational component activities for skill development, to increase public awareness of the science and hazards of volcanoes, and to inspire better preparedness in families and among youth. It was deployed at 9 events in East Hawaii during the year, serving over 1,530 youth based on event logs, finding particular success at regional "Science Nights" in collaboration with the Hawaii Science and Technology Museum (HSTM). Youth could recreate lava flows with corn syrup, examine gas bubbles moving through different viscosity fluids, compare models of strato and shield volcanoes along with elephant toothpaste analogues of their eruptions, induce magma mixing by dropping alka-seltzer into DIY lava lamps, observe crater formation and caldera collapse in a tub of flour with a buried balloon, or use modified stomp-rockets to launch lava bombs at different angles. The components have been designed to accomodate a rapid pace of interactions, but are robust enough to become full classroom lab exercises with development of lesson plans for different age groups in the future. We also maintain a web page with links to free DIY educational activities, preparedness videos, and teaching resources. HVERI mentored one intern and two teams of University of Hawaii at Hilo Computer Science students during the second half of 2025. The intern from North Seattle College, began work in late 2025 focused on digital media and community engagement, learned and supported Facebook and YouTube moderation, OBS recording, video creation, and daily social media posting over a one-month period. Computer Science students in a software development course continued previous work on the "Aloha AI Watchtower" to compile situation reports using AI from information solicited on social media. These are fact-checked and delivered to Hawaii County Civil Defense to aid their situational awareness in the lead up to potential disasters, such as a hurricane landfall. A second group of students began development of a digital interface of lava flow simulations on Hawaii Island for use in outreach events, with both projects continuing into 2026. The "Youth Resilience Through Place-Based Visual Storytelling Using AI" project continued and concluded its pilot run in 2025 in collaboration with Pohaku Pelemaka, cultiminating in 9 days of student outreach for a total of 175 youth. Primarily intended to promote opportunities where youth can develop leadership, creative problem-solving, and collaborative skills, the project also grows cultural and volcano awareness while introducing AI skills, digital literacy, and the ethical and responsible use of emerging technologies. The outreach workshops entail a portable setup with a computer and projector under a canopy, connected by Starlink to the internet. Students are introduced to the mechanics of AI image generation along with a theme, for this project consisting of the v

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
• Program expense ratio: 89.5%; rating input score 90
• Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th 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: 7 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 78
  • 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: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Missing
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -174.1%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.2; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.01; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 61.9%; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 7.8% per year; rating input score 100; 61st percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: -108.7% per year; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: -104.8% per year; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings