Public Invention
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 834036254
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2020–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2019
- Location
- Austin, TX, USA
- Phone
- 5129136103
- Rating
- 92
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Research Institutes and Public Policy Analysis
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $59,248
- Expenses
- $231,397
- Assets
- $84,656
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
8 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Robert L Read (President, Founder)
- Stephanie Liu (Vice President)
People named in this filing
- Robert L Read (President, Founder)
- Christina Cole (Bookkeeper)
- Stephanie Liu (Vice President)
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
Public Invention relieves the poor and distressed and the underprivileged through the advancement of science. Our mission is to "invent in the public, for the public" by creating free-libre, open-source, and humanitarian technologies. We focus on developing accessible, non-proprietary inventions that improve human health, education, and quality of life while bypassing traditional patent-and-profit models. n particular, Public Invention creates teams of volunteers who produce humanitarian open source inventions and machines usable by all. Our method is creating teams of volunteers who collaborate to "work in the light". Many of our projects focus on global health, such as our ventilator, ventilator tester, and our work for NASA creating a digital control system for a ceramic oxygen generator made by for-profit firm. Often our projects use microcontrollers, such as the Krake, a genarl purpose alarm device, but sometimes we make pure-software systems, such as Global Distributed Tracking.
What it reported doing in 2025
The Krake is a general purpose alarm device---like a programmable smoke alarm. It is highly modular, allowing it to be added to other open source projects (like the Public Invention PolyVent) which require a sophisticated alarm system for safety. Backed by a general purpsoe software system (the Alarm Dialog Management System, ADaM), this wireless device is meant to be spun out to for-profit businesses free-of-royalties to local businesses anywhere in the world.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 69% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- 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: 91
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 24
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 75.8%; rating input score 76
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -290.6%; rating input score 4; 4th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.37; rating input score 26; 26th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 56; 56th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 36.9% per year; rating input score 100; 89th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 21.4% per year; rating input score 100; 90th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 36.5% per year; rating input score 100; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 75.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 5 filed program accomplishments · $175K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 8 people listed
- Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 5 filing years from 2020 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: Resolved incoming and outgoing counterparties from filed money flows.
- 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 4/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 26/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 56/100.