Sovrin Foundation

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
813702995
IRS 990 coverage
2020–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025, Form 990-N 2016
Location
Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Rating
50
Verdict
MIXED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Fund Raising and Fund Distribution

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$2,182,771
Expenses
$63,194
Assets
$0
Liabilities
$0

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

Leadership & pay

4 people listed

People named in this filing

  • Stephen Curran (Trustee/Chair)
  • Alex Blom (Trustee)
  • Andre Kudra (Trustee)

Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.

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

Overview

Mission

The purpose of the foundation (Sovrin) is to provide a global public utility for self-sovereign (i.e. user controlled) internet identity that streamlines interactions and enables stronger levels of trust among all individuals, organizations and things.

What it reported doing in 2025

Network growth:1. Attended and presented information at many conferences to educate and encouragedevelopment and adoption of sovrin network.2. Continued to cultivate open source software development community within linuxfoundation's hyperledger indy, hyperledger anoncreds, and hyperledger aries.3. Upgraded and added to foundation website to attract stewards and softwaredevelopment community and to educate about the virtues of self-sovereign identityand the sovrin network.4. Published original content to help educate the technology community aboutself-sovereign identity.5. Improved the operational efficiency for organizations to learn about, request, and receive access to the sovrin utility to enable its use for self-sovereignidentity initiatives.by making foundations technology open-source it is available to all to use withoutpaying a license fee to the foundation. This promotes our mission to provide aglobal public utility for self-sovereign identity.6. Supported the growth of the hyperledger indy community by acting as a convenor of 3 summits.

Operating model

Revenue model
Other-operating. 100% 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

MIXED - 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 a relatively small share of total spending goes to programs.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 8
  • Transparency & Controls: 81
  • Accountability: 88
  • Sustainability: 57
  • Growth: 40

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 0.6%; rating input score 1
  • Program expense ratio: 22%; rating input score 22
  • Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 90%; rating input score 90; 5th 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: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 5 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 71
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Missing
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 97.1%; rating input score 99; 99th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
  • Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 90; 90th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: -60.1% per year; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 27.2% per year; rating input score 100; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: -20.5% per year; rating input score 0; 1st percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 0.6% of revenue deployed · 22% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 7 of 4 board members independent · 5 of 7 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $14K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 4 people listed
  • Consistency: 13 of 14 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 3 filed schedules
  • Filing history: 5 filing years from 2020 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • 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.

  • High — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 1/100.
  • High — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 22/100.
  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Independent members within voting members did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 0/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
  • High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.