Stepping Stones of the Roaring Fork Valley
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 464740539
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2015–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2016, Form 990-T 2022
- Location
- Carbondale, CO, USA
- Phone
- 7202077646
- Rating
- 73
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Public, Society Benefit N.E.C.
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,497,336
- Expenses
- $1,110,260
- Assets
- $3,823,321
- Liabilities
- $-18,629
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
6 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Kyle Crawley (Executive Director)
- Ben Sherman (President)
Highest reported compensation
- Kyle Crawley (Executive Director): $113,000 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Stepping Stones cultivates strong mentoring relationships and community spaces for youth ages 10-24 to foster personal growth, compassion and responsibility.
What it reported doing in 2025
Stepping Stones is a community-based mentoring program that serves over 460 young people annually, empowering participants to thrive through risk prevention and crisis intervention services. Our philosophy is that strong, long-term relationships with positive adults are the key to empowering at risk youth and their families. Our drop-in centers are open five days a week, and provide a diverse, bilingual, family-like atmosphere where youth receive skill development, nightly meals, basic needs assistance, educational support, family engagement and experiential programming. Stepping Stones supports young people to accomplish their goals, such as, finding their first job, reducing substance use, beginning counseling, going camping for the first time or improving their grades.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 95% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - 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 fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 53
- Transparency & Controls: 90
- Accountability: 84
- Sustainability: 64
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 50.4%; rating input score 50
- Program expense ratio: 67%; rating input score 67
- Fundraising efficiency: $7.43 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 26; 26th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 93.8%; rating input score 94; 25th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- 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: 5 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 62
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- 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: 25.9%; rating input score 78; 78th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.44; rating input score 78; 78th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
- Officer compensation ratio: 10.2%; rating input score 37; 37th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 12.5% per year; rating input score 100; 65th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 13.5% per year; rating input score 100; 71st percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 18.8% per year; rating input score 100; 77th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 50.4% of revenue deployed · 67% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 5 board members independent · 5 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $744K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $113K · 6 people listed
- Consistency: 29 of 30 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 9 filing years from 2015 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
- 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.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 50/100.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 26/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 7 not reported.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 37/100.