National Infrastructure Safety Foundation
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 472194747
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2020–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-N 2014
- Location
- Arlington, VA, USA
- Phone
- 7035747376
- Rating
- 64
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Alliance/Advocacy
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $389,216
- Expenses
- $449,131
- Assets
- $169,974
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
4 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Benjamin Dierker (Executive Director)
Highest reported compensation
- Brigham A McCown (Chairman and Founder): $148,770 total reported compensation
- Benjamin Dierker (Executive Director): $140,000 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Organized to develop, promote and advocate best practices and innovative technology to achieve industry safety standards for national infrastructure systems projects.
What it reported doing in 2024
7 White Papers: The Hydrogen Highway: How distributed hydrogen production can maximize existing infrastructure, avoid costs and complications, and jumpstart national hydrogen demand (November, 2024) 2024 Damage Prevention Report Card (September, 2024) America's Backbone: The Importance of Steel and its Evolving Demand (September, 2024) Building New Critical Infrastructure: No Time to Waste. Evaluating Cost Transparency Between a Federal Right of First Refusal and Competitive Bidding in Electrical Transmission Infrastructure Expansion (July, 2024) Excavation Damage Reporting: The Basics of Data Collection and How States Require Strikes and Near Misses to Be Reported (July, 2024) A Unique Win-Win: Bolstering Texas' Energy Security by Leveraging Existing Infrastructure to Effectively Decarbonize (June, 2024) The Challenge Regulating Technology Into Existence: Expected Issues with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) Proposed In-Use Locomotive Emission Rule and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Response (March, 2024)
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Membership-supported. 64% of the money available for current operations came from membership dues.
- 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
SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and program spending has grown recently. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and a relatively small share of total spending goes to programs.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 50
- Transparency & Controls: 90
- Accountability: 53
- Sustainability: 23
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 58.1%; rating input score 58
- Program expense ratio: 50.3%; rating input score 50
- Fundraising efficiency: $3.21 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 14; 14th 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: Limited
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 66.7%; rating input score 67; 18th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 3 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 33
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Fail
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- 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: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -15.4%; rating input score 17; 17th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.38; rating input score 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 80; 80th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 64.3%; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 3.2% per year; rating input score 100; 45th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 7.5% per year; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 1.3% per year; rating input score 100; 30th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 58.1% of revenue deployed · 50.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 2 of 3 board members independent · 3 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $226K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $149K · 4 people listed
- Highest-paid contractors: 2 contractors listed · $289K reported
- Consistency: 39 of 39 current checks pass
- Schedules: 1 filed schedules
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2020 to 2024
- 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.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 58/100.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 50/100.
- Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 5 of 8 not reported.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 14/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 17/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 19/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 2/100.