In Situ Explorers
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 475006681
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2022–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2021
- Location
- Morrisville, NC, USA
- Phone
- 9198026103
- Rating
- 62
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Elementary, Secondary Education, K - 12
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $3,015
- Expenses
- $169,918
- Assets
- $15,783
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
4 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- April C Smith PhD (President)
People named in this filing
- April C Smith PhD (President)
- Gitanjali Tenja PhD (Director)
- Elizabeth Gilleland PhD (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 make access to science education in North Carolina equitable, impartial, and widely available, while invoking passion and encouraging a better understanding of how science and nature impact our lives.
What it reported doing in 2025
Management of the NC Science Trail-We partner with 110 science education entities across the state to bring awareness to SciEd opportunities for the public. Our partners include public and private museums, science centers, planetariums, wildlife centers, aquariums, zoos, botanical gardens, all of the NC state parks. We expanded our services in 2024 to offer additional educational resources to classroom teachers. In 2025, we developed an educator newsletter and online resources specifically for educators in NC. So many science venues provide great science education opportunities for visitors and residents to NC, but it is difficult to find all of the information in one place. Our goal is to partner with these organizations, bring awareness to their programs, and reach out to the public through both in-person and digital means, providing entertaining, intriguing, and educational information that encourages science engagement across the state. In 2025, our online content reached >80,000 views, we attended 28 statewide science education events, and we interacted with more than 12,000 visitors. We had 22 volunteers in 2025 serving approximately 228 volunteer hours.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 62% 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
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: 64
- Transparency & Controls: 74
- Sustainability: 12
- Growth: 0
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 2.7%; rating input score 3
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 90%; rating input score 90; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Limited
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -5,535.8%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.09; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 34.9%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: -50.8% per year; rating input score 0; 8th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -11.2% per year; rating input score 0; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -10.2% per year; rating input score 0; 17th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 2.7% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 3 filed program accomplishments · $5K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 4 people listed
- Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
- Schedules: 1 filed schedules
- Filing history: 2 filing years from 2022 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.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 3/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 1/100.
- High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 12/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 5/100.