Paltown Development Foundation

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
814532089
IRS 990 coverage
2018–2024
Forms available
Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2017, Form 990-N 2016
Location
Edgewater, MD, USA
Phone
4108499660
Rating
68
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Human Service Organizations

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$998,050
Expenses
$718,515
Assets
$496,330
Liabilities
$26,627

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

16 people listed

Highest reported compensation

  • TIFFANY STUDEBAKER FREEMAN (DIR OF OPS & FINANCE (FROM 6/24)): $49,624 total reported compensation
  • NANCY SEYBOLD (COO (UNTIL 6/24)): $40,000 total reported compensation
  • LINDSAY SICHTA (EXECUTIVE DIR. (FROM 11/24)): $20,000 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

Empowering patients and caregivers by creating disease-specific communities to address social isolation and information needs through training, technology, and developing purpose-driven leadership.

What it reported doing in 2024

Platform: colontown has grown since its inception in 2011 to more than 100 private facebook groups serving over 11,000 colorectal cancer patients and caregivers. Facebook offers no native capability to manage collections of groups in a centralized way, and provides very limited analytic and administrative capabilities. As colontown grows, these constraints pose an increasing burden on the management team's ability to effectively serve the membership. In addition, paltown has no control over features, data, or even how group members can access, view, and retrieve information. The community platform space now offers robust options for managing complex communities and associated resources. Migration to a dedicated hosted platform and branded mobile app using a commercially available solution would enable colontown to better serve current and future members in a private space. Paltown would retain control over data and would be able to leverage its disease education resources to support community members in a more effective way.in q3 of 2024, paltown began phase 1 of a project to migrate the colontown virtual colorectal cancer community from facebook to a dedicated platform and custom branded mobile app. As part of this project, paltown conducted a needs assessment, developed detailed project requirements, and completed a vendor landscape survey. Paltown selected and contracted with a software provider by the end of 2024. The project lead developed a detailed roadmap to enable work to begin in q1 of 2025 to build out the new site and app.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 100% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
Distribution model
Direct operator. The filing allocates 96% 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 most voting board members are independent. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 53
  • Transparency & Controls: 75
  • Accountability: 84
  • Sustainability: 57
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 45%; rating input score 45
  • Program expense ratio: 62.4%; rating input score 62
  • Fundraising efficiency: $30.61 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Scored; rating input score 0
  • Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 5 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 62
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Fail
    • Document-retention policy: Fail
    • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Other executive compensation review process: Fail
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 28%; rating input score 83; 83rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.69; rating input score 31; 31st percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.05; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 15.3%; rating input score 22; 22nd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 24.1% per year; rating input score 100; 86th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 22.8% per year; rating input score 100; 88th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 21.5% per year; rating input score 100; 84th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 45% of revenue deployed · 62.4% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 9 of 9 board members independent · 5 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 9 filed program accomplishments · $449K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $50K · 16 people listed
  • Consistency: 32 of 32 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, and grants
  • Filing history: 6 filing years from 2018 to 2024
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 5 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.

  • Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 45/100.
  • High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight scored 0/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 8 not reported.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 31/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 22/100.
  • Review — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 51/100.