Ideas Institute

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
341905156
IRS 990-EZ coverage
2020–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2023, Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2016
Location
Cleveland Hts, OH, USA
Phone
2163215339
Rating
72
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Environmental Education and Outdoor Survival Programs

Reported finances

Revenue
$2,744
Expenses
$52,917
Assets
$62,131
Liabilities
$1,768

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

Leadership & pay

8 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Jennifer Brush (Executive Director)

People named in this filing

  • Margaret Calkins (Board Chair and Senior Researcher)
  • Addie Abushousheh (Trustee)
  • Habib Chaudhury (Trustee)

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 engage in and disseminate research on the therapeutic influences of the environment- organizational and social as well as physical, on older adults and individuals living with dementia.

What it reported doing in 2025

Grant (total grant $99,282 paid in 2023 and January 2024) from the Alzheimer's Association to further develop the Environment Audit Scoring Evaluation (EASE) to assess the person centered environmental characteristics of long-term care residential care settings. IDEAS Institute has been working on the EASE for several years (see 4b below) and expects this work will continue for at least 5 more years. The ultimate goal is to have the EASE be both valid and reliable for use in research projects about the design of long-term care settings, and for use as a design tool when renovating and designed new care settings. The EASE will ultimately be made available for free, along with an extensive training manual and other training resources. Aspects of this project (both 4a and 4b) have been published in Innovation in Aging journal (2022), in Frontiers (2024) and at several national conferences in 2023 and 2024. No grant revenues were received in 2025, but $15,378 was paid out in expenses related to the grant.

Operating model

Revenue model
Earned-program. 71% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
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

SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. A relatively small share of total spending goes to programs and expenses are high relative to revenue.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 74
  • Transparency & Controls: 82
  • Sustainability: 19
  • Growth: 20

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Program expense ratio: 30.5%; rating input score 31

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Limited

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -1,828.5%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.17; rating input score 52; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.03; rating input score 21; 21st percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 41.8%; rating input score 4; 4th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: -8.5% per year; rating input score 0; 30th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: -20.5% per year; rating input score 0; 15th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 1.7% per year; rating input score 100; 44th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 30.5% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: Filed governance answers
  • Accomplishments: 3 filed program accomplishments · $16K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 8 people listed
  • Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 2 filed schedules
  • Filing history: 3 filing years from 2020 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
  • 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 — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 31/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 1/100.
  • High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
  • Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 52/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 4/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 21/100.