Rural Digital Youth Resiliency Project

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
843201158
IRS 990 coverage
2021–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025, Form 990-N 2020
Location
Morgantown, WV, USA
Phone
6813764906
Rating
78
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Standard
Sector
Public, Society Benefit N.E.C.

Reported finances

Revenue
$1,549,594
Expenses
$828,263
Assets
$2,167,189
Liabilities
$47,193

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

Leadership & pay

3 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • DANA COESTER (PRESIDENT)

Highest reported compensation

  • DANA COESTER (PRESIDENT): $35,000 total reported compensation

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

Overview

Mission

Our mission is to investigate the risks that rural community members and rural young people face online, document social costs, and build resources for solutions and interventions to digitally-mediated harms. We convene a collaborative community of practice across technology, faith, journalism, academic, public health, veteran, and civil society organizations and work directly with affected communities to address and develop ground-level solutions and resources.

What it reported doing in 2025

Research - we continued focus groups with high school and college-age students on their digital experiences, digital culture, and exposure to online harms, and continued multi-platform digital ethnography with rural community members. We continued to develop a moral injury framework to address young people's exposure to online harms and susceptibility to online manipulation and added ai-mediated harms to this work. We continued work with a national rural youth working group, sharing resources, research, and collaborating on new research for addressing challenges facing rural youth, including out-of-school rural young people who are not college students (ged, workforce development, and others). We served as an active member of the coalition against online violence, including leading the working group on research and knowledge sharing. We supported research and best practices in trauma-informed research, community engagement, and reporting on vulnerable communities in rural spaces (such as young people, economically distressed, those coping with addiction, and others). We continued disseminating research through presentations, briefings, and workgroups for parents, educators, faith leaders, clinicians, and other community members. We presented our research in multiple conference/convening settings spanning academic, faith-based, civil society organizations, public health orgs, as well as directly with affected community members.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 96% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
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

SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and most voting board members are independent. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 55
  • Transparency & Controls: 94
  • Accountability: 95
  • Sustainability: 76
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 43%; rating input score 43
  • Program expense ratio: 76%; rating input score 76
  • Fundraising efficiency: $19.05 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 54; 54th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 92.3%; rating input score 92; 18th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: Limited
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Yes; rating input score 100

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 7 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 88
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: Pass
    • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 46.5%; rating input score 90; 90th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.62; rating input score 72; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.02; rating input score 52; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 4.2%; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 44.7% per year; rating input score 100; 94th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 35.4% per year; rating input score 100; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 40.4% per year; rating input score 100; 93rd percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 43% of revenue deployed · 76% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 3 of 3 board members independent · 7 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $629K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $35K · 3 people listed
  • Consistency: 27 of 28 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors
  • Filing history: 5 filing years from 2021 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
  • Related organizations: 1 filed related-organization link
  • 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 — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 43/100.
  • Review — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 54/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
  • Review — Transparency & Controls: Schedule G fundraiser detail did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 51/100.
  • Review — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 52/100.