IOLA Foundation

What it reported doing in 2025

Storytelling is at the heart of our effort to empower LGBTQ+ youth around the globe. We share stories that inspire hope, stories that spark conversations, and stories that can inform and positively influence a sexual orientation and/or gender identity journey. Every It Gets Better story offers a unique, wisdom-infused perspective designed to show LGBTQ+ youth that through community, shared experiences, and life-affirming resources, things can and will get better. This simple message of hope has been translated across all forms of media, including social media, television specials, best-selling books, theater, museum exhibits and more. It has attracted millions of followers and supporters from around the world. It Gets Better is the destination for LGBTQ+ youth exploring their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.In 2025, It Gets Better shared uplifting content and messages that reached a global audience of more than 2 million people across TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Bluesky, and more than 190,000 unique visitors explored ItGetsBetter.org, our information-rich website, to engage with resources designed to inform LGBTQ+ youth on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity journey. Each year, we are engaging with roughly 655,000 young people through our media and website channels.In response to pivotal cultural and political moments, It Gets Better created timely storytelling campaigns to remind LGBTQ+ youth they are seen, valued, and worthy of joy. For Valentine's Day, our "See Us, Love Us" campaign featured real-life LGBTQ+ couples, best friends, siblings, and chosen family members in a series of photos and videos celebrating queer love in all its forms. As book bans and attacks on LGBTQ+ language continued to dominate headlines, we developed the "Banned Words" crossword puzzle, a storytelling and engagement campaign that turned censorship into connection. In July, we launched our first Summer Reading Challenge, a campaign that celebrated queer literature and more than a dozen LGBTQ+ authors while raising funds to support LGBTQ+ youth. We refreshed the traditional "It Gets Better" video format by asking guests to finish the sentence: "It Gets Better When..." The series launched with Karla Mosley, star of the CBS soap opera Beyond the Gates, whose video became the most-viewed live-action original video we had produced in more than three years. We followed with new videos from influencer and creator Shannon Beveridge, the cast of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds for Mental Health Action Day, and award-winning actor Guillermo Daz.We presented our fifth annual It Gets Better: A Digital Pride Experience, bringing 130 LGBTQ+ streamers together on Twitch throughout June, the most streamers we have ever worked with for a single campaign. Collectively, they went live for more than 350 hours of content for queer youth, raising critical funds for our work and showing young viewers that Pride does not only live in big-city parades. Our end-of-year fundraising campaign, The Bigger Picture, was a storytelling-centric effort designed to show LGBTQ+ youth that there is life beyond the headlines. As our biggest end-of-year fundraising effort to date, the campaign featured video content from celebrities and supporters including Noah Wyle, Paul Feig, Rosie O'Donnell, Margaret Cho, Conor Janda, Mike Manning, Karla Mosley, and more. The campaign culminated in our first-ever Queerathon on Twitch, a ten-hour livestream event featuring gaming, panel discussions, a live book reading, interviews, and participation from Youth Voices ambassadors and It Gets Better: Changemakers grantees.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 62.3%; rating input score 62
• Program expense ratio: 72.6%; rating input score 73
• Fundraising efficiency: $9.19 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 32; 32nd percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 92.9%; rating input score 93; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 2 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 33
  • Compensation committee: Missing
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Pass
  • Written employment contract: Missing
  • Compensation survey or study: Missing
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Scored; rating input score 0
• Grant itemization coverage: 94.1%; rating input score 94; 45th percentile among comparable filings
• 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: 8 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 14.2%; rating input score 64; 64th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.47; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.01; rating input score 64; 64th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 32.4%; rating input score 7; 7th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 16.4% per year; rating input score 100; 74th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 13.2% per year; rating input score 100; 70th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 11% per year; rating input score 100; 58th percentile among comparable filings