Steel Hearts Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 472511085
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2021–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-T 2023, Form 990-N 2019
- Location
- Fort Mill, SC, USA
- Phone
- 4085698449
- Rating
- 96
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Fund Raising and Fund Distribution
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $91,397
- Expenses
- $78,772
- Assets
- $94,587
- Liabilities
- $6,251
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
4 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- JOSEPH WISEMAN (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
- KRISTIN SERAYDARIAN (VICE PRESIDENT)
People named in this filing
- JOSEPH WISEMAN (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
- KRISTIN SERAYDARIAN (VICE PRESIDENT)
- CHRIS MARTI (SECRETARY)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Steel-hearts.org is dedicated to honoring and memorializing the legacy of all fallen service members. Through meaningful tributes, community engagement, and lasting initiatives, we strive to ensure their sacrifices are remembered, their stories are told, and their impact is never forgotten.
What it reported doing in 2025
Steel hearts honors the legacy of fallen military service members through memorial bracelets, family engagement, and charitable giving. Each memorial bracelet features a fallen hero's name, rank, unit, and dates of service. Bracelets are sold for $35, with $10 from every sale donated to a u.s.-based 501(c)(3) charity in honor of the fallen hero.in 2025, the organization sold approximately 1,790 memorial bracelets, raising $17,900 for charitable partners, and donated 610 bracelets (valued at $21,350) to gold star families and military organizations at no cost.steel hearts maintains steel-hearts.org, a public memorial website featuring over 420 dedicated biographical pages honoring fallen service members across all branches of service. Each memorial page includes the hero's biography, service history, and a space for visitors to leave messages of remembrance. Supporter messages are collected, reviewed, and vetted by volunteers before being packaged and delivered to the hero's surviving family connecting gold star families with the broader community of americans who honor their loved one's sacrifice.the organization operates a monthly anniversary remembrance initiative in which a team of nine volunteers sends personalized emails to gold star families on the anniversary of their loved one's death, ensuring each family knows their service member is still remembered. Steel hearts also conducts daily social media engagement, publishing over 800 memorial posts annually across instagram and facebook.steel hearts attended and sponsored events with partner organizations including the memorial valor foundation, legacies alive gold star family picnic, the mountain man memorial march, the cadet thomas surdyke memorial foundation, and the duke carrillo foundation. The organization also disbursed donations to over 100 charitable partners in 2025 in honor of fallen service members.all operations are volunteer-driven; the organization had one paid employee for three months during the year.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
- Distribution model
- Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent spending detail to tell whether the nonprofit works directly or through others.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Some filed totals do not add up and assets have declined or grown slowly.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 100
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 49
- Growth: 80
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 13.8%; rating input score 65; 65th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.2; rating input score 52; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.07; rating input score 17; 17th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 9.5%; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 54.5% per year; rating input score 100; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 5.8% per year; rating input score 100; 71st percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -0.5% per year; rating input score 0; 36th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $107K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 4 people listed
- Consistency: 8 of 9 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 5 filing years from 2021 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.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Part III program expenses within total did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 52/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 10/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 17/100.