Salish Sea Sciences

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
823307581
IRS 990 coverage
2025–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025
Location
Friday Harbor, WA, USA
Phone
3606229883
Rating
76
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Secondary, High School

Reported finances

Revenue
$228,803
Expenses
$243,036
Assets
$15,111
Liabilities
$0

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

Leadership & pay

5 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Caroline C Grauman-Boss (Board Treasurer/Executive Director)

Highest reported compensation

  • Caroline C Grauman-Boss (Board Treasurer/Executive Director): $91,500 total reported compensation
  • Thomas D Grauman (Board Secretary / part-time in program & website): $17,740 total reported compensation

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

Overview

Mission

We fully exploit the physical and human resources of the Salish Sea to equip high school students with knowledge, skills, career awareness, and confidence for civic life and college and career success, most especially in STEAM fields. Salish Sea Sciences brings motivated high school students from all backgrounds together with scientists and other professionals to learn from and protect the Salish Sea, its creatures, and people in multi-week summer residential programs and intensive multi-week school-day programs in Seattle public schools focused primarily on marine field and lab research and ecology and conservation. We serve students from the San Juan Islands, the greater Salish Sea region, the state of Washington and multiple other states as well as other countries. Our mission is (1) grow a community of critical thinkers, 2) bring innovation to public engagement in science, 3) raise awareness of science as a career path, and 4) advance a more diverse cohort of investigators.

What it reported doing in 2025

School-based programming for Summit Public Schools: 2-week Ecology & Conservation intensive for Summit Atlas High School and 2-week Ecology & Conservation intensive for Summit Sierra High School, both of Seattle, WA. Marine Ecology & Conservation: engage students with marine science, ecology, and conservation institutions, practitioners, methods and tools, deepening students' scientific and ecological perspectives of their Salish Sea home and acquainting them with a wide array of professions related to understanding and protecting the Salish Sea, its creatures, and its people. Students create a 'preliminary project proposal' to present to classmates and guests on the last day, recommending an engagement pathway for high school aged students. Our goal is that with limited classroom time, extensive site-visits and engagement with multiple guest mentors representing a wide array of .edu, .gov, and .orgs, the personal stories of those guest mentors, and the students' individual project research and presentations will stimulate their connection to place and their personal agency as individuals and citizens to engage with their environment and communities. We aim for our programming to both inform and support student's college and career goals and trajectories. Salish Sea Sciences' shares with Summit Public Schools a commitment to support students' sense of belonging and personal agency--rooted in science and connected to place and community--engendering leadership skills and informed college and career choices. Summit Public Schools provide a rigorous, supportive, and inclusive learning environment to a diverse group of passionate young people. They are committed to ensuring that 100% of their students graduate with concrete next steps after high school. They serve a diverse student population across many lines, consistent with the school districts in which they operate. Together, we work so that these young people become leaders and contributors to the greater Salish Sea region and anywhere else they may go. During 2025, our primary activities for Summit programming was making the plan to follow through with the original design which is to have students on rural San Juan Island residentially for the first week, followed by school-day programming in the greater Puget Sound area in and around Seattle for the second week. Accordingly, we planned two scenarios, one with a potential rental of dorm space to house students and their school chaperone and one where they camp. In light of the possibility of camping, we postponed the programs to the spring of 2026 to take advantage of better weather during the schools' available expeditionary periods. Hence, we had no revenue for this programming during 2025, though we spent considerable time on planning and writing grants for this purpose. Please see Accomplishment Three for details as these activities are consistent with the "administrative" domain described in Accomplishment Three.

Operating model

Revenue model
Other-operating. 87% of the money available for current operations came from other operating 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

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 expenses are high relative to revenue.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 89
  • Transparency & Controls: 90
  • Accountability: 63
  • Sustainability: 22
  • Growth: NotEnoughData

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: Limited
  • Major donor itemization: Limited
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 60%; rating input score 60; 20th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 6 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 67
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: Pass
    • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Missing
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -6.2%; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.06; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 44.9%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: Limited
  • Revenue growth: Limited
  • Asset growth: Limited

Details

  • Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 3 of 5 board members independent · 6 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $243K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $92K · 5 people listed
  • Consistency: 40 of 40 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 3 filed schedules
  • 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.

  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 8 not reported.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 23/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 5/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 5/100.