Digital Progress Institute
Legal name: The Digital Progress Institute
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 871330450
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2022–2025
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2021
- Location
- Washington, DC, USA
- Phone
- 6266174941
- Rating
- 64
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,159,036
- Expenses
- $740,573
- Assets
- $1,156,950
- Liabilities
- $6,698
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Joel Thayer (President & Member of the Board)
Highest reported compensation
- Joel Thayer (President & Member of the Board): $416,240 total reported compensation
- Nicholas Degani (Chief Strategist & Member of the Board): $139,700 total reported compensation
- Kim Keenan (Chief Policy Officer & Member of the Board): $13,970 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The Digital Progress Institute works to bridge the policy divide between telecom and tech through a bipartisan, incremental approach.
What it reported doing in 2025
ROBUST COMPETITION: Reexamining market forces in the digital era to ensure that artificial roadblocks, imposed by government or private-sector monopolists, do not restrain full-fledged competition. Such work also included raising awareness of the importance of bipartisan antitrust enforcement, the importance of interoperability, and working on app store age verification measures.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 99% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 99% 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
SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and program spending has grown recently. A relatively small share of voting board members are independent and the filing does not identify recipients for some grant dollars.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 80
- Transparency & Controls: 52
- Accountability: 42
- Sustainability: 64
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 64.2%; rating input score 64
- Program expense ratio: 99.8%; rating input score 100
- Fundraising efficiency: $733.35 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 96; 96th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 90%; rating input score 90; 7th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Pass
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Missing
- Board or committee approval: Missing
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 0%; rating input score 0; 15th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 40%; rating input score 40; 14th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 4 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 44
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: Fail
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 36.1%; rating input score 85; 85th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.56; rating input score 57; 57th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.01; rating input score 64; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 77%; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 20.2% per year; rating input score 100; 80th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 33.7% per year; rating input score 100; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 43.6% per year; rating input score 100; 94th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: Mission, programs, and operating context captured from the official website.
- Where the money goes: 64.2% of revenue deployed · 99.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 2 of 5 board members independent · 4 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 5 filed program accomplishments · $739K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $416K · 5 people listed · 1 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 39 of 40 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2022 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 4 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 1 filed related-organization link
- 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 — Accountability: Independent voting board scored 40/100.
- High — Transparency & Controls: Grant itemization coverage scored 0/100.
- Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 8 not reported.
- Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 57/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 0/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Foreign grants require schedule f did not reconcile in the filed values.