Ransomed Heart Ministries
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 841535770
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2010–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-T 2025
- Location
- Colorado Springs, CO, USA
- Phone
- 7198848111
- Rating
- 72
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Religious Printing, Publishing
- Affiliation
- Christianity
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $8,394,842
- Expenses
- $7,386,129
- Assets
- $4,709,873
- Liabilities
- $108,571
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
16 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Bradley Beck (Executive Director)
- John Eldredge (CEO/President)
Highest reported compensation
- John Eldredge (CEO/President): $308,529 total reported compensation
- Alex Burton (Chief Operating Officer): $305,170 total reported compensation
- Jonathan Dale (Chief Strategy Officer): $305,114 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
This organization exists to restore men and women to live from their heart - as God's intimate allies - by recovering the treasure of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, entrusting that message to the people who have been transformed by it, and to train them to do the same for others.
What it reported doing in 2025
Wild at Heart promotes the message of recovering the treasure of the Gospel, setting men and women free to live from the heart as God's intimate allies which was accomplished in 2025 by having five events: a Fourth Quarter event in March for 31 men, a Wild at Heart event in April for 438 Men, a new Ladder of Love event in October for 401 women, a new Guide School event in October for 175 men, and an Advent Gathering in December for 55 women. The ministry delivers its message in many formats: through resources (books, study guides, audio, and video downloads) available on the website www.wildatheart.org, answering emails and mail correspondence, providing free daily readings (devotional readings) sent out electronically to 52,991 individuals, free weekly audio and video podcasts available with 22,000,000 all-time impressions, and 30,000 average impressions per episode, monthly newsletters to 25,660 constituents and weekly email updates to 105,242 constituents. Wild at Heart, The Series is a new four-episode video series produced by the ministry and was released on YouTube Wild at Heart in October of 2024. It features a prologue and four videos of men who have undergone transformation through the message of Wild at Heart. Each episode has averaged over 35k views. There have been over 2,000 completed Wild at Heart Local events and Captivating Local events held by Wild at Heart allies since the inception of the program. The ministry has a Facebook group page that has over 1,661,985 engagements another Facebook page for women with 5,738,879 engagements, and a Wild at Heart Instagram feed with 62,500 subscribers. Wild at Heart has a YouTube channel with 52,894 subscribers. The free One Minute Pause app for meditations was new in 2020 after the release of John's book Get Your Life Back and now has more than 956,310 accounts with over 19,415,115 completed pauses over the past 2 years. The Pause app has been updated with special programs which features content and meditation on John Eldredge's recent books Resilient, and Experience Jesus, Really with 35,416 completions of the Resilient program and 32,355 completions of the EJR program in the last 2 years.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 90% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 93% 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
SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 65
- Transparency & Controls: 83
- Accountability: 72
- Sustainability: 43
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 64.2%; rating input score 64
- Program expense ratio: 73%; rating input score 73
- Fundraising efficiency: $12.01 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Pass
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Pass
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- 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: 75%; rating input score 75; 14th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 6 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 67
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Fail
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 12%; rating input score 60; 60th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.64; rating input score 21; 21st percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.02; rating input score 70; 70th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 32.2%; rating input score 6; 6th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 8.4% per year; rating input score 100; 54th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 6.5% per year; rating input score 100; 48th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 2.3% per year; rating input score 100; 19th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 64.2% of revenue deployed · 73% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 6 of 8 board members independent · 6 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $5.4M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $309K · 16 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $862K reported
- Consistency: 31 of 31 current checks pass
- Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 16 filing years from 2010 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 12 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.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 9 not reported.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 42/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 21/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 6/100.