Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research

Overview

Mission

SABER's vision is to be the leading scientific community for advancing post-secondary biology education research and practice through empowering researchers, educators, and learners. Our goals are to promote the generation of evidence-based knowledge to inform and advance post-secondary teaching and learning in biology; facilitate the dissemination of BER findings to education researchers, classroom practitioners, and other stakeholders; support faculty as they implement evidence-based methodology; foster the development of trainees as they pursue professional development and career opportunities in BER; increase BER efforts in currently understudied and underserved teaching and learning contexts; strive for an inclusive BER community that reflects a diversity of post-secondary educators and emerging scholars; establish standards of BER practice and evidence; and foster collaborations among BER investigators and other stakeholders.

Operating model

Revenue model

Other-operating. 70% of the money available for current operations came from other operating revenue.

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

SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. The filing does not identify recipients for some grant dollars and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.

Rating breakdown

• Financial Efficiency: 64
• Transparency & Controls: 60
• Accountability: 70
• Sustainability: 31
• Growth: 60

Detailed rating inputs

Details

• Where the money goes: 76.3% of revenue deployed · 64.8% of spending went to programs
• Governance: 5 of 5 board members independent · 2 of 7 filing controls reported
• Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $144K in reported program spending
• Leadership: top reported pay $40K · 6 people listed
• Consistency: 41 of 42 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
• Schedules: 3 filed schedules · includes grants
• 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.

Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.

• High — Transparency & Controls: Grant itemization coverage scored 7/100.
• High — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 6 not reported.
• High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 16/100.
• Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 38/100.
• Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
• High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 21/100.
• High — Grant Readiness: Automatic revocation: this organization had its federal tax-exempt status automatically revoked.