Museum at Dinosaur Junction
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 844965772
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2025–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2024
- Location
- Edwards, CO, USA
- Phone
- 9703904831
- Rating
- 70
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Natural History, Natural Science Museums
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $194,014
- Expenses
- $62,834
- Assets
- $191,901
- Liabilities
- $6,575
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
8 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Wiliam Doran (Executive Director/Board Member)
Highest reported compensation
- Wiliam Doran (Executive Director/Board Member): $27,625 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The Museum at Dinosaur Junction was founded to preserve, study and celebrate fossil remains of dinosaurs and other life forms in the area of Dinosaur Junction near Wolcott, Colorado. In addition, The Museum at Dinosaur Junction leads the Colorado high country in the pursuit of educating the public about the natural history of the area in both the physical landscape and the life that lived here.
What it reported doing in 2025
The museum was opened in June 2022 with numerous fossils. models and displays of dinosaurs and other life forms. The museum hosted over 3,000 visitors in 2025 including children, families and school groups.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 81% 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and a large share of total spending goes to programs. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 63
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 55
- Sustainability: 69
- Growth: 60
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 33.6%; rating input score 34
- Program expense ratio: 99.9%; rating input score 100
- Fundraising efficiency: $2,374.65 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 99; 99th percentile among comparable filings
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: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 85.7%; rating input score 86; 25th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 1 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 12
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Fail
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: Fail
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 67.6%; rating input score 95; 95th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.05; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.03; rating input score 30; 30th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 44%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: Limited
- Revenue growth: 120.6% per year; rating input score 100; 99th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 96.2% per year; rating input score 100; 99th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 33.6% of revenue deployed · 99.9% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 6 of 7 board members independent · 1 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $63K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $28K · 8 people listed
- Consistency: 40 of 40 current checks pass
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
- 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.
Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 34/100.
- High — Accountability: Governance controls: 6 of 7 not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 5/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 30/100.
- High — Grant Readiness: Automatic revocation: this organization had its federal tax-exempt status automatically revoked.