Ingenuity Prep
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 455054392
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2013–2024
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Washington, DC, US
- Phone
- (202) 562-0391
- Rating
- 84
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Charter Schools
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $27,235,650
- Expenses
- $25,626,893
- Assets
- $33,366,587
- Liabilities
- $20,780,845
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
21 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- WILLIAM STOETZER - CHIEF (EXECUTIVE OF): $222,138 total reported compensation
- LASHAWNDRA THORNTON - CHIEF (TALENT OFFIC): $183,348 total reported compensation
- BENJAMIN JOHNSON - CHIEF (ACADEMIC OFF): $174,350 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
To bring more quality educational seats to the Southeast neighborhoods of Bellevue and Washington Highlands in Washington, D.C.
What it reported doing in 2024
Ingenuity prep public charter school is a supportive community dedicated to academic rigor and civic leadership, preparing students for the path to the colleges and careers of their choosing. With this aim, the charter school opened in Washington, dc, in august of 2013 and has expended to now serve over 800 students in preschool through 8th grade and has a staff of more than 160. Ingenuity prep is organized into three academies: early childhood academy (serving grades preschool through kindergarten), elementary school academy (serving grades 1 through 4), and middle school academy (serving grades 5 through 8). We prepare our students for success in college and in life. We set high standards and strive to cultivate a love of learning in every student. We are a place where students can learn, establish deep relationships and prepare to become impactful civic leaders. The cornerstones of ingenuity prep's program are: rigorous content and individualized instruction - we start by setting high academic standards for our students, and creating the circumstances for them to achieve academic excellence. We believe that the best way to do this is by leveraging a robust curriculum and consistently delivering well-planned, high-quality lessons. We are able to accomplish our goals by being responsive to student data, maintaining low teacher-to-student ratios so that students are always getting personalized and small group learning, enabling teacher content specialization as early as kindergarten so that our teachers are true experts in the subjects that they teach, and intentionally leveraging technology to even further personalizeand accelerate student learning. Civic leadership - we believe that academic excellence - while very important - is not sufficient to prepare students for the demands of 21st century leadership. Building civic leaders is core to our mission. We want to equip students to pursue their passions and be empowered to think, speak, and act positively on behalf of themselves, their community, the country, and the world. Beginning in pre-k, civic leadership class time and activities are intentionally built into our schedule. In our early grades, we focus on social-emotional instruction so that students build skills in empathy, resilience, and self-advocacy. As our students get older, we continue to build on social-emotional skills while also having students engage with specific social justice issues and providing them with opportunities to engage with those issues in their community. For example, when our 4th graders learned about our food desert in ward 8, they planned a food drive and delivered the proceeds to local food banks. Enrichment - we provide daily opportunities for students to pursue interest areas outside of traditional academics. Our enrichment programs start in pre-k with art and physical education and build throughout the course of elementary and middle school where we add music and expanded science and social studies classes. Enrichments are opportunities for students to build knowledge in areas of passion, which in turn fuel motivation and foster growth mindset. We believe strong enrichment supports student growth and motivation across all parts of the school experience. In addition to the core components of our day-to-day program, themes of community, relationships, and equity of access run through every part of our school. These principles are core to our school's identity: community and relationships: community and relationships are integral parts of academic and personal development. Our teachers take time to build meaningful connections with students, working intentionally to get to know them as people. We also hold up families as critical members of our school community. We believe in cultivating them as partners and providing them with tools and resources to support students to meet their goals and realize their dreams. Further, we work intentionally to support students to build their own communit
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 85% 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.
- 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 expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 83
- Transparency & Controls: 84
- Accountability: 90
- Sustainability: 49
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 85%; rating input score 85
- Program expense ratio: 90.8%; rating input score 91
- Fundraising efficiency: $15.44 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 50; 50th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 4 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 67
- Compensation committee: Pass
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Pass
- Compensation survey or study: Pass
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 90.9%; rating input score 91; 23rd 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: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 5.9%; rating input score 57; 57th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.3; rating input score 46; 46th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.62; rating input score 21; 21st percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 4.9%; rating input score 52; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 15.6% per year; rating input score 100; 84th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 15.8% per year; rating input score 100; 87th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 26.9% per year; rating input score 100; 95th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 5 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 3 operating locations identified
- Where the money goes: 85% of revenue deployed · 90.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 10 of 11 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $23.3M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $222K · 21 people listed · 4 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $2.1M reported
- Consistency: 35 of 35 current checks pass
- Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes major donors and executive pay
- Filing history: 12 filing years from 2013 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 8 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
- 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.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 50/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 57/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 46/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 21/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 52/100.