Sunstone
Legal name: Sunstone Education Foundation Incorporated
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 870683974
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2020–2025
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, United States
- Phone
- 8013555926
- Rating
- 58
- Verdict
- MIXED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Religious Printing, Publishing
- Affiliation
- Religious (unspecified)
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $426,284
- Expenses
- $419,857
- Assets
- $35,465
- Liabilities
- $22,842
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
11 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Lindsay Hansen Park (Executive Director)
Highest reported compensation
- Lindsay Hansen Park (Executive Director): $85,000 total reported compensation
- Stephen Carter (Director of Publication): $55,400 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Sunstone is a nonprofit dedicated to hosting open forums of Mormon thought and experience. Sunstone is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. All donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. You can view our financial information here. EIN: 87-0683974 About Sunstone. The following is a list of the Board of Directors for the Sunstone Education Foundation. Please feel free to reach out to our board members with your questions, concerns, suggestions, and feedback: Bill McGee:** Board chair, executive committee member [email protected]_ Kim McCall:** Web and tech committee, Music committee [email protected]_.
What it reported doing in 2025
Sunstone sponsors symposiums and conferences throughout the year.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 83% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- 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: 27
- Transparency & Controls: 84
- Accountability: 91
- Sustainability: 22
- Growth: 60
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 22.7%; rating input score 23
- Program expense ratio: 23%; rating input score 23
- Fundraising efficiency: $21.9 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 57; 57th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 90%; rating input score 90; 10th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- 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: 7 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 78
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 1.5%; rating input score 39; 39th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.08; rating input score 6; 6th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.64; rating input score 7; 7th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 33.4%; rating input score 9; 9th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: -10.3% per year; rating input score 0; 10th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 11.4% per year; rating input score 100; 73rd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 13% per year; rating input score 100; 71st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: Mission, programs, and operating context captured from the official website.
- Where the money goes: 22.7% of revenue deployed · 23% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 9 of 9 board members independent · 7 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $97K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $85K · 11 people listed
- Consistency: 23 of 24 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 6 filing years from 2020 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 3 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.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 23/100.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 23/100.
- High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 57/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 39/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 6/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 7/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 9/100.