The Methuselah Foundation
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 542040344
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2017–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Springfield, VA, USA
- Phone
- 5712320444
- Rating
- 63
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Fund Raising and Fund Distribution
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,975,510
- Expenses
- $2,634,224
- Assets
- $20,402,247
- Liabilities
- $32,485
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
1 person listed
Executive titles in this filing
- DAVID GOBEL (CEO)
Highest reported compensation
- DAVID GOBEL (CEO): $296,362 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Methuselah foundation works to accelerate technological breakthroughs in healthy human life extension through regenerative medicine and nutrition, research initiatives, start-up incubation, and open innovation challenges.
What it reported doing in 2024
Biomedical engineering: accelerating the creation of functional human tissues and models of human systems biology modeling. This program fosters the development of validated in vitro and in silico tissue models via research, start-up incubation, and public collaborations, including management of nasa's vascular tissue challenge and development of animal free precision medicine challenge.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 66% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 81% 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 the filed numbers largely add up. A relatively small share of voting board members are independent and few specific pay-setting methods are documented in the filing; unanswered boxes are not proof of absence.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 86
- Transparency & Controls: 64
- Accountability: 10
- Sustainability: 42
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 91%; rating input score 91
- Fundraising efficiency: Limited
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 0 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 0
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Missing
- Board or committee approval: Missing
- Foreign activity oversight: 1 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 12
- Claims monitoring procedures: Pass
- Requires narrative reports: Fail
- Conducts field audits: Fail
- May suspend future funding: Fail
- Requires financial reports: Fail
- Conducts site visits: Fail
- Requires grant agreements: Fail
- May require repayment: Fail
- Grant itemization coverage: 99.8%; rating input score 100; 50th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 0%; rating input score 0; 5th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 2 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 25
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Fail
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: Fail
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -33.3%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 7.75; rating input score 90; 90th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 78; 78th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 11.3%; rating input score 33; 33rd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 33.2% per year; rating input score 100; 91st percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 41.7% per year; rating input score 100; 95th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 19.9% per year; rating input score 100; 81st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 91% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 0 of 1 board members independent · 2 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $2.4M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $296K · 1 people listed · 0 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Highest-paid contractors: 2 contractors listed · $657K reported
- Consistency: 33 of 33 current checks pass
- Schedules: 9 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 8 filing years from 2017 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 9 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 8 filed related-organization links
- 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 — Accountability: Independent voting board scored 0/100.
- High — Transparency & Controls: Pay-setting controls scored 0/100.
- High — Accountability: Governance controls: 5 of 7 not reported.
- High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight: 7 of 8 not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 5/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 33/100.