The Social Engineering Project
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 834147990
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2022–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Oakland, CA, USA
- Phone
- 5102143194
- Rating
- 51
- Verdict
- MIXED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Specialized Education Institutions
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $267,261
- Expenses
- $357,232
- Assets
- $36,633
- Liabilities
- $5,838
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- Kevin Nichols (Director): $76,923 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 Social Engineering Project, Inc. TSEP is an Oakland based, 501c3 tax exempt social impact venture with Stanford University designed to address the lack of diversity in the tech industry through culturally relevant STEM pipeline programs for underrepresented students of color that lead to technical career pathways.
What it reported doing in 2025
Family Science Days/Nights: Our goal is to provide free Family Science Days ? FSD? throughout the school year to reinforce some of the scientific principles that we expose our students to and create a support group within families to continue to foster a love for math, science, technology, and engineering. Many of our students have siblings that do not attend our other programs, so we provide family-friendly science activities for our students and their relatives. FSNs are typically hosted at a tech company's headquarters and they teach our students something about their products or services. Moreover, TSEP provides resources for parents separately so that they can best support their children to pursue STEM-related careers throughout their academic life. This past year, Google hosted us at its headquarters.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 100% 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
MIXED - The filed numbers largely add up. 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: 35
- Transparency & Controls: 85
- Accountability: 47
- Sustainability: 9
- Growth: 40
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 42.4%; rating input score 42
- Program expense ratio: 31.7%; rating input score 32
- Fundraising efficiency: $1.39 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 7; 7th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 90.9%; rating input score 91; 15th 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: 80%; rating input score 80; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 0 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 0
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Fail
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Fail
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -33.7%; rating input score 7; 7th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.1; rating input score 7; 7th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.16; rating input score 18; 18th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 21.5%; rating input score 17; 17th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 3.2% per year; rating input score 100; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -0.5% per year; rating input score 0; 18th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -13% per year; rating input score 0; 5th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 42.4% of revenue deployed · 31.7% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 4 of 5 board members independent · 0 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 5 filed program accomplishments · $113K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $77K · 5 people listed
- Consistency: 24 of 25 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2022 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.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 42/100.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 32/100.
- High — Accountability: Governance controls: 7 of 7 not reported.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 7/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 7/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 7/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 17/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 18/100.