Youth Business Initiative
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 850594373
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2023–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2022, Form 990-N 2020
- Location
- Norwalk, CT, USA
- Phone
- 2039529580
- Rating
- 76
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Youth Development - Business
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $300,462
- Expenses
- $246,660
- Assets
- $173,603
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
7 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Dajuan Wiggins (CEO and Executive Director)
Highest reported compensation
- Dajuan Wiggins (CEO and Executive Director): $80,382 total reported compensation
- Holley Nia (Program Staff): $20,800 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Youth Business Initiative also know as YBI, is committed to empowering underprivileged youth with workforce readiness & business development skills for community development. YBI advances its mission with workforce readiness and business development program initiatives that serve high school students interested in Economics for Youth.
What it reported doing in 2025
Summer Entrepreneurship 101 Program We train youth in Business Development, Finance & Accounting, Marketing & Branding, Communication and Etiquette, and Public Speaking. Through entrepreneurship sessions, students explore all the options of researching and bringing a business idea to a full business plan. Our students learn basic business terms along with finding their strengths and weaknesses. Students then create their business SWOT Analysis, Mission Statements, Governance, Operations, and Finance structure. We also address professional communication and etiquette. We stress the importance of their first impression in building a business relationship. At the end of the term, students complete in a business competition our version of "Shark Tank" event with community based and sector judges who award business seed money to the student group. Student Group: High School
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 available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Program spending has declined or grown slowly and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 69
- Transparency & Controls: 90
- Accountability: 81
- Sustainability: 51
- Growth: 60
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 72.4%; rating input score 72
- Program expense ratio: 87.9%; rating input score 88
- Fundraising efficiency: Limited
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- Major donor itemization: Limited
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 83.3%; rating input score 83; 24th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 7 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 78
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 17.9%; rating input score 68; 68th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.7; rating input score 32; 32nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 41%; rating input score 6; 6th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: -7.7% per year; rating input score 0; 13th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 22.2% per year; rating input score 100; 88th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 32.9% per year; rating input score 100; 91st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 72.4% of revenue deployed · 87.9% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 6 board members independent · 7 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $217K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $80K · 7 people listed
- Consistency: 23 of 24 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 3 filing years from 2023 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 3 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.
- High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 9 not reported.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 32/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 6/100.