Rocky Mountain Best

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
272434632
IRS 990-EZ coverage
2011–2025
Forms available
Form 990-EZ 2025
Location
Lakewood, CO, USA
Phone
3037408491
Rating
91
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Youth Development Programs

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$103,082
Expenses
$79,515
Assets
$234,010
Liabilities
$5,624

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

Leadership & pay

6 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Carolyn Bauer (President, Board of Directors)
  • Gwynn Moore (Vice President, Board of Directors)
  • Jose Lopez (Executive Director, Board of Directors)

People named in this filing

  • Carolyn Bauer (President, Board of Directors)
  • Gwynn Moore (Vice President, Board of Directors)
  • Judith Schlesinger (Secretary, Board of Directors)

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

Rocky Mountain BEST provides a forum for youth to develop technical and life skills through a robotics program in which youths participate in teams in Middle and High Schools under the guidance of Teachers and Mentors from their local community to design and build competition robots.

What it reported doing in 2025

Part III, line 30 - Our third largest program is the Teacher Mentor Institute Program. In this program, we expose the teachers who are newer to the BEST program to techniques that will help them mentor their students to a more successful season. They learn about the software that is given to their teams, learn about all the parts of the BEST program, including building a robot, and the writing an Engineering Notebook. The teachers/mentors receive 3 free days of training, and also can request Continuing Education credits. We were able to offer this program to 17 teachers/mentors during 2025 at no cost to participants. 12 Volunteers helped with this program.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 93% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
Distribution model
Direct operator. The filing allocates 89% 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. Liabilities are high compared with assets.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 84
  • Transparency & Controls: 100
  • Sustainability: 72
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 75.7%; rating input score 76
  • Program expense ratio: 95.7%; rating input score 96

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 22.9%; rating input score 75; 75th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.94; rating input score 88; 88th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.02; rating input score 31; 31st percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 10.7% per year; rating input score 100; 60th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 3.3% per year; rating input score 100; 35th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 10.5% per year; rating input score 100; 60th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 75.7% of revenue deployed · 95.7% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: Filed governance answers
  • Accomplishments: 4 filed program accomplishments · $76K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 6 people listed
  • Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 3 filed schedules
  • Filing history: 11 filing years from 2011 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: Resolved incoming and outgoing counterparties from filed money flows.
  • Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
  • 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 — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 31/100.