Open Transit Software Foundation

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
841786969
IRS 990-EZ coverage
2025–2025
Forms available
Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2024
Location
Seattle, WA, USA
Phone
2066331971
Rating
84
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Community, Neighborhood Development

Reported finances

Revenue
$79,945
Expenses
$97,788
Assets
$60,643

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

Leadership & pay

11 people listed

People named in this filing

  • Kari Watkins (Chairman)
  • Devin Braun (Secretary)
  • Alan Borning (Treasurer)

Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.

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

Overview

Mission

Coordinate open source software projects to provide information about public transportation.

What it reported doing in 2025

Develop and maintain the OneBusAway suite of open-source software for providing schedule and real-time information about public transportation. The software includes apps for mobile devices, the server, and transit agency back-end support. The development and maintenance work is performed by contractors paid by OTSF, by software developers working at agencies or companies that use or support OneBusAway, and by volunteers. We have also recently developed OneBusAway Cloud and added it to our software suite. This is a cloud-based software service that allows transit agencies, particularly smaller ones with fewer resources, to run OneBusAway inexpensively, without needing dedicated IT staff or a custom support contract with a private consultancy (which have proven to be major barriers to the wider adoption of the system). Number of persons benefited (users of the apps and software): 300,000.

Operating model

Revenue model
Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent revenue detail to tell how this nonprofit funds its work.
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: 100
  • Transparency & Controls: 82
  • Sustainability: 20
  • Growth: NotEnoughData

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Limited

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -22.3%; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.62; rating input score 36; 36th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
  • Officer compensation ratio: 73.6%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: Limited
  • Revenue growth: Limited
  • Asset growth: Limited

Details

  • Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: Filed governance answers
  • Accomplishments: 3 filed program accomplishments · $98K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 11 people listed
  • Consistency: 6 of 6 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 2 filed schedules
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
  • 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 — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 20/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 36/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 1/100.