The Discovery Museum Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 060740527
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2009–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Bridgeport, CT, USA
- Phone
- 2034163521
- Rating
- 87
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Museum, Museum Activities
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,848,902
- Expenses
- $2,571,715
- Assets
- $5,616,644
- Liabilities
- $1,125,683
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
12 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- Erika Eng (Executive Dir.): $125,444 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The Discovery Museum strives to engage, excite, and educate young learners through experiences and programs that inspire wonder and ignite creativity as the foundation for a lifetime love of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning.The Museums core audience is young learners ages 5-14 who connect to us with their teachers and classmates during the school day or by themselves or with their families, mentors, or social groups after school, on weekends, during school vacations or in the summer. We provide a hardy portfolio of STEM learning experiences including; unmediated gallery-based exploration of STEM focused temporary and permanent exhibits; over 80 unique onsite and offsite mediated demonstrations and learning labs; a Challenger Learning Center space exploration simulation; Planetarium shows; unique grant-funded school-museum science learning partnerships; and an engaging 7-week summer STEM learning program.
What it reported doing in 2024
Educational and guest services programs: develop and deliver high-quality informal science programming supporting current national and local science education standards. Support classroom teachers to achieve their science learning goals through in-house, outreach, and professional development programming. Act as a resource to enhance science literacy among our visitors and community at large.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
- 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
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 81
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 100
- Sustainability: 31
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 73.5%; rating input score 73
- Fundraising efficiency: $2.04 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 6; 6th 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: Limited
- 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: 8 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -39.1%; rating input score 4; 4th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.18; rating input score 67; 67th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.2; rating input score 31; 31st percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 4.9%; rating input score 53; 53rd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 2.1% per year; rating input score 100; 27th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 1.7% per year; rating input score 100; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 2.2% per year; rating input score 100; 26th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 73.5% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 9 of 9 board members independent · 8 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $1.9M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $125K · 12 people listed
- Consistency: 34 of 34 current checks pass
- Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 16 filing years from 2009 to 2024
- 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.
- 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.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 6/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 4/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 31/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 53/100.