Science and Technology Futures Inc

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
883129122
IRS 990 coverage
2022–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025
Location
Cambridge, MA, USA
Phone
6177442089
Rating
83
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Public, Societal Benefit

Reported finances

Revenue
$1,043,829
Expenses
$8,027,633
Assets
$2,792,145
Liabilities
$175,250

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

Leadership & pay

12 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • LAURA DEMING (PRESIDENT)
  • JOSE LUIS RICON (VICE PRESIDENT/SECRETARY)
  • NICHOLAS GJOKAJ (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)

Highest reported compensation

  • PETER KELLY (PROGRAM DIRECTOR (THRU 11/25)): $260,023 total reported compensation
  • AVIV SPINNER (LEARNING FELLOW (THRU 11/25)): $225,595 total reported compensation
  • COREY HUDSON (HEAD OF DATA (THRU 11/25)): $223,521 total reported compensation

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

Overview

Mission

Science and technology futures, inc.'s mission is to identify and support scientists, engineers, and other innovators with an interest in shaping the national/global research agenda. We foster, support, promote, and conduct programs, projects, and activities designed to develop and accelerate scientific and technological research and innovation in the public interest, including, without limitation, through administering research grant programs, whitepaper competitions, scientific agenda-setting activities, and fiscal sponsorship of other mission-aligned organizations.

What it reported doing in 2025

Align to innovate: align to innovate is working at the intersection of biology and ai to improve life science research with programmable experiments. We use automation as a focal point to align the incentives of researchers worldwide to identify and execute large, collaborative, data-intensive projects. We accelerate these projects by creating venues for agenda setting, facilitating collaborations, and removing technical bottlenecks from the ecosystem. We aim to move the field toward a new paradigm of automation-first life science research.align to innovate made significant progress in 2025. Scientific highlights included the 2025 protein engineering tournament, which attracted over 290 international teams, and the establishment of partnerships with various research organizations to create open datasets in the biological sciences (e.g., microbial phenotyping, protein function, protein expression). The team published research on a number of topics including the impact of data scaling on protein function prediction and discussion paper addressing bottlenecks in protein expression via a proposed data collection platform.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 76% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
Distribution model
Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 60% for direct work, and 40% for grants.

The verdict

STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and expenses are high relative to revenue.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 98
  • Transparency & Controls: 72
  • Accountability: 95
  • Sustainability: 12
  • Growth: 60

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Program expense ratio: 98%; rating input score 98
  • Fundraising efficiency: $98.64 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 85; 85th 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: 1 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 12
    • Claims monitoring procedures: Pass
    • Requires narrative reports: Fail
    • Conducts field audits: Fail
    • May suspend future funding: Fail
    • Requires financial reports: Fail
    • Conducts site visits: Fail
    • Requires grant agreements: Fail
    • May require repayment: Fail
  • Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 78th percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 8 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 89
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: Fail
    • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -669.1%; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.35; rating input score 18; 18th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.06; rating input score 40; 40th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 17.3%; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 77.4% per year; rating input score 100; 98th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: -16.6% per year; rating input score 0; 1st percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 5.1% per year; rating input score 100; 36th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 98% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 4 of 4 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 8 filed program accomplishments · $7.9M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $260K · 12 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $1.4M reported
  • Consistency: 35 of 35 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, grants, and executive pay
  • Filing history: 4 filing years from 2022 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 14 filed money-flow records
  • Related organizations: 5 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.

  • High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight: 7 of 8 not reported.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 0/100.
  • High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 18/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: CEO compensation review process not reported.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 20/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 40/100.