Rails Foundation

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
882382127
IRS 990 coverage
2022–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025
Location
Wilmington, DE, USA
Phone
7732907276
Rating
30
Verdict
REVIEW
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Professional Societies, Associations

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$2,012,509
Expenses
$1,518,572
Assets
$1,968,430
Liabilities
$1,008,343

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

Leadership & pay

13 people listed

Highest reported compensation

  • Amanda Perino (Executive Dir.): $165,588 total reported compensation
  • Edwin Oh (Treasurer): $6,000 total reported compensation

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

Overview

Mission

Non-profit association organized to promote the ruby on rails framework

What it reported doing in 2025

Launched the "on rails" podcast featuring technical interviews with prominent rails community members and maintainers. Continued modernization of rails guides, updating 12 guides and improving seo/documentation discoverability. Expanded beginner education resources with two new rails tutorials and a new tutorials landing page. Published a new rails case study highlighting cookpad's migration to rails and real-world business impact. Sponsored and supported regional rails community events in brazil and colombia, including rails girls initiatives and tropical on rails. Expanded rails video and educational media efforts through youtube series, shorts, and maintainer/community interview programming. Organized and produced rails world 2025 in amsterdam with 825 attendees. Launched the first rails at scale summit focused on large-scale rails engineering practices for 150 attendees. Recognized marco roth for the 2025 rails luminary award program. Grew rails foundation membership by welcoming judge.me as a core member and six new contributing members. Welcomed new board directors from github, shopify, and judge.me. Continued investment in rails marketing, education, events, and ecosystem growth initiatives worldwide.

Operating model

Revenue model
Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
Distribution model
Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent spending detail to tell whether the nonprofit works directly or through others.

The verdict

REVIEW - The filed numbers largely add up and revenue 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: 0
  • Transparency & Controls: 60
  • Accountability: 30
  • Sustainability: 54
  • Growth: 60

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 0%; rating input score 0
  • Program expense ratio: 0%; rating input score 0
  • Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: 0 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 0
    • Compensation committee: Missing
    • Independent consultant: Missing
    • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
    • Written employment contract: Missing
    • Compensation survey or study: Missing
    • Board or committee approval: Missing
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: Limited
  • Major donor itemization: Limited
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 15.4%; rating input score 15; 8th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 4 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 50
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Other executive compensation review process: Fail
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Fail
    • Audit committee oversight: Missing
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 24.5%; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.3; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.51; rating input score 15; 15th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 11.3%; rating input score 30; 30th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: -40% per year; rating input score 0; 1st percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 33.3% per year; rating input score 100; 95th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 32.2% per year; rating input score 100; 94th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 0% of revenue deployed · 0% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 2 of 13 board members independent · 4 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment
  • Leadership: top reported pay $166K · 13 people listed · 0 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Consistency: 10 of 11 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 2 filed schedules · includes executive pay
  • Filing history: 4 filing years from 2022 to 2025
  • 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.

  • High — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 0/100.
  • High — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 0/100.
  • High — Transparency & Controls: Pay-setting controls scored 0/100.
  • High — Accountability: Independent voting board scored 15/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 7 not reported.
  • High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Functional expense sum did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 43/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 15/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 30/100.