Paws4people® Foundation
Legal name: Paws4people
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 541948479
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2012–2025
- Official website data refreshed
- Aug 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Wilmington, NC, USA
- Phone
- 18887627297
- Rating
- 87
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Blind/Visually Impaired Centers
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $2,706,111
- Expenses
- $4,545,770
- Assets
- $18,148,824
- Liabilities
- $1,890,786
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
10 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- KYRIA H WHISENHUNT (VICE-CHAIRMAN & PERMANENT): $70,799 total reported compensation
- DANIELLE COCKERHAM (SECRETARY): $67,778 total reported compensation
- TERRY L HENRY (CHAIRMAN & PERMANENT TRUST): $60,717 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 provide highly trained service dogs to individuals with disabilities, enhancing their independence and quality of life.
What it reported doing in 2025
The organization is a nonprofit non-stock corporation incorporated in the commonwealth of Virginia on july 6, 1999 with its principal office and operations in wilmington, North Carolina. The organization is registered as a foreign corporation in the states of North Carolina, West Virginia, California, Georgia, Illinois, and Texas, and in the district of columbia. The organization does business as paws4people, paws4people foundation, paws4prisons, and paws4vets. The organization raises, trains, and places service dogs and facility dogs, and provides certification, insurance, and support for each client-assistance dog team or handler-facility dog team for the duration of the team's career. The organization specializes in training customized service dogs for two general groups: children and adolescents with physical, neurological, psychiatric, or emotional disabilities; and veterans and service members with chronic/complex post-traumatic stress disorder (c-ptsd), traumatic brain injuries (tbi), and military sexual trauma (mst). The organization also trains, certifies and places facility dogs with specific individuals who will use the facility dog within his/her profession and/or volunteer activities to provide animal assisted interventions, which are designed to promote improvement in physical, social, emotional, and/or cognitive functioning of the individual(s) involved and in which the handler-facility dog team is an integral part.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
- 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
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 88
- Transparency & Controls: 94
- Accountability: 82
- Sustainability: 36
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 92.4%; rating input score 92
- Fundraising efficiency: $5.98 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 19; 19th 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: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 75th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 70%; rating input score 70; 13th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 8 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- 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: -68%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.99; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.1; rating input score 47; 47th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 4.4%; rating input score 61; 61st percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 10.5% per year; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 9.9% per year; rating input score 100; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 12.2% per year; rating input score 100; 66th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 8 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 1 operating location identified
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 92.4% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 7 of 10 board members independent · 8 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $4.2M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $71K · 10 people listed
- Consistency: 36 of 36 current checks pass
- Schedules: 9 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 12 filing years from 2012 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 4 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 2 filed related-organization links
- 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.
- Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 19/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 1/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 47/100.