Write to Hope
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 331761812
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2025–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- Saint Paul, MN, USA
- Rating
- 72
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Alliance/Advocacy Organizations
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $78,804
- Expenses
- $43,445
- Assets
- $41,848
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Melissa Martinez (Executive Director)
People named in this filing
- Dennis Kelly (Board Chair)
- Norma Bourland (Treasurer)
- Doran Schoeppach (Secretary)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Write to Hope provides creative writing workshops for incarcerated individuals in Minnesota county jails. Through guided sessions led by trained volunteers participants engage in poetry journaling storytelling and reflective writing that encourage self expression personal growth emotional healing and human connection. The organization recruits and supports volunteer facilitators develops partnerships with correctional facilities and works to expand access to rehabilitative writing programs for incarcerated men and women throughout Minnesota.
What it reported doing in 2025
Provided ongoing theraputicwriting reflective journaling workshops for incarcerated men and women in Minnesota correctional and county jail facilities. Programs supported literacy emotional wellness self expression and personal growth through regular facilitated sessions and volunteer instruction.
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
SUPPORTED - A large share of total spending goes to programs and the filed numbers largely add up. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 72
- Transparency & Controls: 82
- Sustainability: 55
- Growth: NotEnoughData
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 54.5%; rating input score 55
- Program expense ratio: 98.9%; rating input score 99
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Limited
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 44.9%; rating input score 88; 88th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.96; rating input score 46; 46th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
- Officer compensation ratio: 93%; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: Limited
- Revenue growth: Limited
- Asset growth: Limited
Details
- Where the money goes: 54.5% of revenue deployed · 98.9% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 3 filed program accomplishments · $43K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 5 people listed
- Consistency: 6 of 6 current checks pass
- Schedules: 1 filed schedules
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 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.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 55/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 46/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 0/100.