Knox Forest School
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 821887611
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2023–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2022
- Location
- Knoxville, TN, USA
- Phone
- 8657766587
- Rating
- 82
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Elementary, Secondary Education, K - 12
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $284,687
- Expenses
- $299,066
- Assets
- $5,240
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
13 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Sara Otis (Director and Board President)
- Megan Chaney (Vice President)
Highest reported compensation
- Sara Otis (Director and Board President): $55,720 total reported compensation
- Luke Marx (Lead Teacher): $39,618 total reported compensation
- Katie Barr (Lead Teacher): $35,710 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The mission of Knox Forest School is to connect young people especially and adults to nature based curriculum in order to deepen and foster a connection with healthy individual and community care and growth. We do this through offering nature based curiosity led classes and events throughout the year.
What it reported doing in 2024
Our second goal was to make sure our school campus and grounds were well taken care of. This included rent maintenance and care for outdoor pavilions and our school house. It also included care for our large garden. We also maintain trails on our campus and respond to any weather based clean up needs on the trails. As well as graveling muddy areas. In addition we ran a "clean up our creek" work project in order to maintain the health of our outdoor space.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Other-operating. 99% of the money available for current operations came from other operating 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
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Expenses are high relative to revenue and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 89
- Transparency & Controls: 90
- Accountability: 68
- Sustainability: 24
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100
- 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: Limited
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 60%; rating input score 60; 17th 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: -5.1%; rating input score 29; 29th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.02; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 80; 80th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 83%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 25.2% per year; rating input score 100; 88th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 17.7% per year; rating input score 100; 85th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 34.6% per year; rating input score 100; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 3 of 5 board members independent · 7 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $299K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $56K · 13 people listed
- Consistency: 40 of 40 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 2 filing years from 2023 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 21 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.
Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 29/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 2/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 1/100.
- High — Grant Readiness: Automatic revocation: this organization had its federal tax-exempt status automatically revoked.