Meedan Inc

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
204504068
IRS 990 coverage
2017–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025
Location
San Francisco, CA, USA
Phone
4154972900
Rating
74
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Computer Science

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$6,301,624
Expenses
$5,069,501
Assets
$5,139,438
Liabilities
$41,586

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

Leadership & pay

12 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Edward Bice Chair (CEO)

Highest reported compensation

  • Edward Bice Chair (CEO): $190,079 total reported compensation
  • Brian Fleming (Director of Product): $181,172 total reported compensation
  • Dwight Knell (COO): $170,141 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

To strengthen journalism, digital literacy and information accessibility for global communities.

What it reported doing in 2025

Check / 3PFC: In 2025, Meedan continued development of Check, our open source platform for collaborative fact-checking and media analysis. Check powered 58 tiplines serving 143,631 unique users and supported 526,910 conversations between fact-checkers and their audiences in 34 languages and dialects. We also began building Suwali, a new AI-powered conversational tool that helps journalists and civil society organizations serve their communities with their own trusted content, in their own languages. By the end of the year we were testing Suwali with six pilot partners across Egypt, Lebanon, India, and the United States. With our Research program folded into this work, the team also published peer-reviewed research on evaluating AI systems, including a paper that won an Outstanding Paper Award at the Association for Computational Linguistics annual conference.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 87% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
Distribution model
Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 76% for direct work, and 24% for grants.

The verdict

SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 70
  • Transparency & Controls: 72
  • Accountability: 81
  • Sustainability: 56
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 64.8%; rating input score 65
  • Program expense ratio: 80.3%; rating input score 80
  • Fundraising efficiency: $28.2 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 68; 68th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 93.3%; rating input score 93; 18th 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: 1 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 12
    • Claims monitoring procedures: Pass
    • Requires narrative reports: Fail
    • Conducts field audits: Fail
    • May suspend future funding: Fail
    • Requires financial reports: Fail
    • Conducts site visits: Fail
    • Requires grant agreements: Fail
    • May require repayment: Fail
  • Grant itemization coverage: 97.1%; rating input score 97; 38th percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 66.7%; rating input score 67; 13th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 9 of 9 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: Pass
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 19.6%; rating input score 72; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.01; rating input score 34; 34th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.01; rating input score 80; 80th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 16.6%; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 15.4% per year; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 17.2% per year; rating input score 100; 83rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 23.4% per year; rating input score 100; 88th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 64.8% of revenue deployed · 80.3% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 4 of 6 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $4.1M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $190K · 12 people listed · 4 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Highest-paid contractors: 4 contractors listed · $619K reported
  • Consistency: 35 of 36 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, grants, and executive pay
  • Filing history: 8 filing years from 2017 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 7 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 — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight: 7 of 8 not reported.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 34/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 20/100.
  • Review — Transparency & Controls: Foreign grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.