St Mark Youth Enrichment
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 421338364
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2011–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Dubuque, IA, USA
- Phone
- 5635826211
- Rating
- 80
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $2,020,120
- Expenses
- $1,501,061
- Assets
- $1,737,906
- Liabilities
- $46,967
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
13 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Dawn Cogan (Executive Director)
Highest reported compensation
- Dawn Cogan (Executive Director): $106,598 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
To provide innovative programs and services that cultivate the educational and social-emotional growth of youth and families.
What it reported doing in 2025
Apples for StudentsSt. Mark Youth Enrichment Apples for Students provides school supplies to students in need in Dubuque, Western Dubuque, and surrounding areas. School supplies were provided to 3,600 students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch.Apples for Students is organized and facilitated by St. Mark in collaboration with the schools, area businesses, and community volunteers. Every year in May/June, the process begins to identify students in need and every year we identify increasing numbers of students. (Statement continued on Schedule O)Students in need are referred to us by their schools or a human service agency. We then solicit the community by approaching individuals, churches, and area businesses to donate money to purchase the supplies. St. Mark buys supplies in bulk because it is cost effective to do this during the months of July and August. In August, St. Mark rallies 100 volunteers that organize and sort the supplies, package the required materials by grade and needs of the school, deliver the supplies, and clean up. Approximately 400 hours of volunteer work takes place. Individual bags of school supplies are then delivered to the school buildings where they are distributed to students upon starting school.The program reduces the expense and anxiety on families who cannot afford the needed school supplies so that their children can go to school prepared and empowered to learn. This project cultivates support from a community that values education and ensures equitable access to the tools needed to be successful, so students are able to focus on learning in comfort.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 86% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 96% 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
STRONG - The filed numbers largely add up and a large share of available resources goes toward mission work. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 69
- Transparency & Controls: 94
- Accountability: 79
- Sustainability: 61
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 62.7%; rating input score 63
- Program expense ratio: 83.8%; rating input score 84
- Fundraising efficiency: $15.51 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 75th 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; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 4 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 25.7%; rating input score 78; 78th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.16; rating input score 39; 39th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.03; rating input score 68; 68th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 7.1%; rating input score 44; 44th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 7.3% per year; rating input score 100; 48th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 10.8% per year; rating input score 100; 69th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 4.4% per year; rating input score 100; 30th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 62.7% of revenue deployed · 83.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 9 of 9 board members independent · 4 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $1.3M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $107K · 13 people listed
- Consistency: 33 of 33 current checks pass
- Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 14 filing years from 2011 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
- 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.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 7 not reported.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 51/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 39/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 44/100.