Mission: Per Scholas' mission is to advance economic equity through rigorous training for tech careers and to connect skilled talent to leading businesses. A thriving workfor ... (More)
Per Scholas is a 501(c)(3) organization, with an IRS ruling year of 1995, and donations are tax-deductible.
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Contact Information
804 East 138th Street
2nd Floor
Bronx NY 10454
The IRS is significantly delayed in processing nonprofits' annual tax filings (Forms 990). As a result, the Financial and Accountability & Transparency score for Per Scholas is outdated and the overall rating may not be representative of its current operations. Please check with the charity directly for any questions you may have.
Charity Navigator evaluates a nonprofit organization’s financial health including measures of stability, efficiency and sustainability. We also track accountability and transparency policies to ensure the good governance and integrity of the organization.
This charity's score is 93.41, earning it a 4-Star rating. Donors can "Give with Confidence" to this charity.
This score is calculated from two sub-scores:
Finance: 91.18 View details
Accountability & Transparency: 97.00 View details
This score represents Form 990 data from 2019, the latest year published by the IRS.
View this organization’s historical ratings.
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The Program Expense Ratio is determined by Program Expenses divided by Total Expense (average of most recent three 990s).
This measure reflects the percent of its total expenses a charity spends on the programs and services it exists to deliver. Dividing a charity's average program expenses by its average total functional expenses yields this percentage. We calculate the charity's average expenses over its three most recent fiscal years.
Source: IRS Form 990
As reported by charities on their IRS Form 990, this measure reflects what percent of its total budget a charity spends on overhead, administrative staff and associated costs, and organizational meetings. Dividing a charity's average administrative expenses by its average total functional expenses yields this percentage. We calculate the charity's average expenses over its three most recent fiscal years.
Source: IRS Form 990
This measure reflects what a charity spends to raise money. Fundraising expenses can include campaign printing, publicity, mailing, and staffing and costs incurred in soliciting donations, memberships, and grants. Dividing a charity's average fundraising expenses by its average total functional expenses yields this percentage. We calculate the charity's average expenses over its three most recent fiscal years.
Source: IRS Form 990
The Liabilities to Assets Ratio is determined by Total Liabilities divided by Total Assets (most recent 990).
Part of our goal in rating the financial performance of charities is to help donors assess the financial capacity and sustainability of a charity. As do organizations in other sectors, charities must be mindful of their management of total liabilites in relation to their total assets. This ratio is an indicator of an organization’s solvency and or long term sustainability. Dividing a charity's total liabilities by its total assets yields this percentage.
Source: IRS Form 990
The amount spent to raise $1 in charitable contributions. To calculate a charity's fundraising efficiency, we divide its average fundraising expenses by the average total contributions it receives. We calculate the charity's average expenses and average contributions over its three most recent fiscal years.
Source: IRS Form 990
Determines how long a charity could sustain its level of spending using its net available assets, or working capital, as reported on its most recently filed Form 990. We include in a charity's working capital unrestricted and temporarily restricted net assets, and exclude permanently restricted net assets. Dividing these net available assets in the most recent year by a charity's average total expenses, yields the working capital ratio. We calculate the charity's average total expenses over its three most recent fiscal years.
Source: IRS Form 990
We compute the average annual growth of program expenses using the following formula: [(Yn/Y0)(1/n)]-1, where Y0 is a charity's program expenses in the first year of the interval analyzed, Yn is the charity's program expenses in the most recent year, and n is the interval of years passed between Y0 and Yn.
Source: IRS Form 990
Charity Navigator looks to confirm on the Form 990 that the organization has these governance practices in place.
Sources Include: IRS Form 990
Governance: | |
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Independent Voting Board Members ... (More) | |
No Material Diversion of Assets ... (More) A diversion of assets – any unauthorized conversion or use of the organization's assets other than for the organization's authorized purposes, including but not limited to embezzlement or theft – can seriously call into question a charity's financial integrity. We check the charity's last two Forms 990 to see if the charity has reported any diversion of assets. If the charity does report a diversion, then we check to see if it complied with the Form 990 instructions by describing what happened and its corrective action. This metric will be assigned to one of the following categories:
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Audited Financials Prepared by Independent Accountant ... (More) Audited financial statements provide important information about financial accountability and accuracy. They should be prepared by an independent accountant with oversight from an audit committee. (It is not necessary that the audit committee be a separate committee. Often at smaller charities, it falls within the responsibilities of the finance committee or the executive committee.) The committee provides an important oversight layer between the management of the organization, which is responsible for the financial information reported, and the independent accountant, who reviews the financials and issues an opinion based on its findings. We check the charity's Form 990 reporting to see if it meets this criteria.
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Does Not Provide Loan(s) to or Receive Loan(s) From Related Parties ... (More) | |
Documents Board Meeting Minutes ... (More) | |
Distributes 990 to Board Before Filing ... (More) | |
Compensates Board ... (More) |
Charity Navigator looks to confirm on the Form 990, or for some metrics on the charity's website, that the organization has these policies in place.
Sources Include: IRS Form 990 and organization's website
Policies: | |
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Conflict of Interest ... (More) | |
Whistleblower ... (More) | |
Records Retention and Destruction ... (More) | |
CEO Compensation Process ... (More) | |
Donor Privacy ... (More) Donors can be reluctant to contribute to a charity when their name, address, or other basic information may become part of donor lists that are exchanged or sold, resulting in an influx of charitable solicitations from other organizations. Our analysts check the charity's website to see if the organization has a donor privacy policy in place and what it does and does not cover. Privacy policies are assigned to one of the following categories:
The privacy policy must be specific to donor information. A general website policy which references "visitor" or "user" personal information will not suffice. A policy that refers to donor information collected on the website is also not sufficient as the policy must be comprehensive and applicable to both online and offline donors. The existence of a privacy policy of any type does not prohibit the charity itself from contacting the donor for informational, educational, or solicitation purposes. (Less) | Partial |
Charity Navigator looks to confirm on the Form 990, or for some metrics on the charity's website, that the organization makes this information easily accessible.
Sources Include: IRS Form 990 and organization's website
Transparency: | |
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CEO Salary Listed on 990 ... (More) | |
Board of Directors Listed on Website ... (More) | |
Key Staff Listed on Website ... (More) | |
Audited Financial Statements on Website ... (More) | |
Form 990 Available on Website ... (More) |
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This chart displays the trend of revenue and expenses over the past several years for this organization, as reported on their IRS Form 990.
Presented here are this organizations key compensated staff members as identified by our analysts. This compensation data includes salary, cash bonuses and expense accounts and is displayed exactly how it is reported to the IRS. The amounts do not include nontaxable benefits, deferred compensation, or other amounts not reported on Form W-2. In some cases, these amounts may include compensation from related organizations. Read the IRS policies for compensation reporting
Current CEO and Board Chair can be found in the Leadership & Adaptability report below.
Source: IRS Form 990 (page 7), filing year 2019
Below are some key data points from the Exempt Organization IRS Business Master File (BMF) for this organization. Learn more about the BMF on the IRS website
Described in section 170(b)1)(a)(vi) of the Code (BMF activity code: 994)
Gifts, grants, or loans to other organizations (BMF activity code: 602)
Organization which receives a substantial part of its support from a governmental unit or the general public 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) (BMF foundation code: 15)
Independent - the organization is an independent organization or an independent auxiliary (i.e., not affiliated with a National, Regional, or Geographic grouping of organizations). (BMF affiliation code: 3)
The Form 990 is a document that nonprofit organizations file with the IRS annually. We leverage finance and accountability data from it to form Encompass ratings. Click here to view this organization's Forms 990 on the IRS website (if any are available).
Due to the unprecedented nature of the pandemic, we give charities such as this one the opportunity to share the story of COVID's impact on them. Charities may submit their own pandemic responses through their nonprofit portal.
Program Delivery
Fundraising Capacity
Revenue
Staffing
Administrative Capacity
Grants Received
Balance Sheet
With the initial outbreak of COVID-19, many of our funders, including corporate, foundation, government, and others, began to focus on critical and immediate needs. This decreased the grant revenue available to Per Scholas and necessitated finding additional funding sources that prioritized long-term recovery to the crisis through investment in workforce development and equitable economic recovery for underserved communities. With an anticipated reduction in revenue for our 2020 fiscal year, we adjusted our expenses downward in response. In addition, there was a cost associated with shifting our staff and learners to a fully remote experience, and with building a permanent Remote Training Team. At the same time, our customized training operations grew as demand for a pipeline of technology professionals continued to rise during the pandemic’s remote work environment. We were fortunate to receive a $2.6M PPP loan that allowed us to retain the majority of our staff.
As COVID-19 began spreading across the United States, Per Scholas acted quickly and nimbly to transition all in-person classes across 12 national locations to remote learning environments. This necessitated creating entirely new processes for remote admissions, technical instruction, learner support, and job attainment assistance. Not only did the learner retention rate remain high during the pandemic, but Per Scholas has successfully launched five new campuses since the start of the pandemic in partnership with TEKsystems, a leading full-stack technology staffing and services provider. Despite challenges, we trained nearly 2,000 learners in 2020 and achieved an impressive 80% graduation rate. With the strong outcomes achieved through remote training, and its demonstrated benefit in increasing accessibility to our courses, we have continued to offer rigorous remote training across our now 17 campuses, and have grown our enrollment to reach a projected 3,000 learners by the end of 2021.
In response to COVID-19, Per Scholas successfully transitioned all enrolled learners and staff members to a remote work and virtual learning structure and we have continued to enroll thousands of learners into rigorous remote training courses in the past year. We created new virtual volunteering opportunities for our corporate partners, a staff mentoring program to ensure learners feel supported by the entire organization, as well as new processes for remote admissions, learner support, and connecting our graduates with middle-skills job opportunities. We also adapted training curricula and content to fit the remote model, and continue to refine our training with the inclusion of a technology toolkit that includes a laptop with a webcam, headphones, Wi-Fi access, and a Raspberry Pi microcomputer for hands-on learning.
Per Scholas’ National Remote Training program is now part of our regular offerings, and results indicate a high degree of effectiveness. We also see great potential for remote training to expand accessibility to our training for learners who struggle to access in person courses, such as parents or individuals with mobility issues. These courses are open to candidates from any US city and designed to meet employer-specific job demand. We will also be using what we learned during the transition to remote learning to offer virtual upskilling courses to alumni and to create more alumni targeted services outside of the classroom, lead by our new alumni engagement team. With robust remote training, we will be able to achieve our ambitious goals to scale our reach to 4,000 learners in 2022—doubling enrollment from 2020—and continue to connect our alumni to high-growth careers at a range of employer partners.
Previous: Finance & Accountability / Next: Leadership & Adaptability
This score estimates the actual impact a nonprofit has on the lives of those it serves, and determines whether it is making good use of donor resources to achieve that impact.
out of 100
Per Scholas is , earning a passing score. This score has no effect on the organization's Star Rating.
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WorkAdvance
The nonprofit provides free, high-quality job training and support services to talented young people. The nonprofit then partners with large I.T. employers to place graduates in jobs.
Outcomes: Changes in the lives of those served by a nonprofit. They can be caused by the nonprofit.
Costs: The money spent by a nonprofit and its partners and beneficiaries.
Impact: Outcome caused by a nonprofit relative to its cost.
Cost-effectiveness: A judgment as to whether the cost was a good use of resources to cause the outcome.
Ratings are based on data the nonprofit itself collects on its work. We use the most recent year with sufficient data. Typically, this data allows us to calculate direct changes in participants' lives, such as increased income.
Outcome data collected through the research organization M.D.R.C for a study funded by the Social Innovation Fund. M.D.R.C. conducted the evaluation, collecting baseline data and three year follow-up data through surveying, administrative data and other sources.
We don't know if the observed changes were caused by the nonprofit's program or something else happening at the same time (e.g., a participant got a raise). To determine causation, we take the outcomes we observe and subtract an estimate of the outcomes that would have happened even without the program (i.e., counterfactual outcomes).
The program’s impact was measured using a random assignment design, often referred to as the "gold standard" in evaluation. Randomization ensures there are no systematic differences between participants and the control group they are compared to.
After estimating the program's outcomes, we need to determine how much it cost to achieve those outcomes. All monetary costs are counted, whether they are borne by a nonprofit service deliverer or by the nonprofit’s public and private partners.
Program cost data reported by the nonprofit. Partner and beneficiary costs reported by the nonprofit or estimated by Charity Navigator.
We calculate impact, defined as the change in outcomes attributable to a program divided by the cost to achieve those outcomes.
$8,000 increases the earnings of a low-income adult by $13,000.
Impact & Results scores of workforce training programs are based on income generated relative to cost. Programs receive an Impact & Results score of 100 if they increase income for a beneficiary by more than $1.50 for every $1 spent and a score of 75 if income increases by more than $0.85 for every $1 spent. If a nonprofit reports impact but doesn't meet the threshold for cost-effectiveness, it earns a score of 50.
Analysis conducted by ImpactMatters and published on December 1, 2018.
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Per Scholas reported its two largest programs on its FY 2019 Form 990 as:
Spent in most recent FY
Percent of program expenses
Vocational Training
Spent in most recent FY
Percent of program expenses
Asset Recovery
Previous: Impact & Results / Next: Culture & Community
This score provides an assessment of the organization's leadership capacity, strategic thinking and planning, and ability to innovate or respond to changes in constituent demand/need or other relevant social and economic conditions to achieve the organization's mission.
out of 100
The score earned by Per Scholas is a passing score. This score has no effect on the organization's Star Rating.
Encompass Rating V4 provides an evaluation of the organization's Leadership & Adaptability through the nonprofit organization submitting a survey response directly to Charity Navigator.
The nonprofit organization presents evidence of strategic thinking through articulating the organization’s mission
Per Scholas’ mission is to advance economic equity through rigorous training for tech careers, and to connect skilled talent to leading businesses.
Source: Nonprofit submitted responses
The nonprofit organization presents evidence of strategic thinking through articulating the organization’s vision.
A thriving workforce starts with equitable access to education. By providing skills training and access to employer networks to individuals often excluded from tech careers, Per Scholas envisions a tech workforce as diverse as the customers it serves.
Source: Nonprofit submitted responses
The nonprofit organization presents evidence of strategic thinking and goal setting through sharing their most important strategic goals.
Goal One: Scale up to train 4,000+ new learners in 2022 through growth in existing markets and the addition of new training locations, expanding access to our training for a wider range of diverse learners.
Goal Type: Grow, expand, scale or increase access to the existing programs and services.
Goal Two: Ensure that our graduates connect to high-growth careers by deepening and strengthening employer partnerships, and achieve an 80% job attainment rate for graduates by one year post-graduation.
Goal Type: Grow, expand, scale or increase access to the existing programs and services.
Goal Three: Support our alumni to advance along their career pathways, providing upskilling and professional development to ensure that 80% of employed alumni reach thriving wages by two years post employment.
Goal Type: Grow, expand, scale or increase access to the existing programs and services.
Source: Nonprofit submitted responses
The nonprofit provides evidence of investment in leadership development
Per Scholas invests in opportunities for employees to participate in leadership development, professional development, and/or conferences. Over one-third of our staff has taken advantage of the opportunity to attend a training program or conference, including a 6-month long series of professional development training for all of our learner-facing staff members. Internally, we hold monthly People Leaders' Discussions and Trainings focused on topics such as Performance Management, Burnout, Employee Wellness, and Goal Setting. We provide LinkedIn Learning access to support ongoing professional development. Externally we support our employees in their individual professional development goals by sponsoring their attendance at trainings and conferences. Lastly, we have received pro bono support from NBCUniversal to develop an internal advancement career map for Per Scholas employees, empowering them to more easily identify and pursue their professional and leadership goals at Per Scholas.
Source: Nonprofit submitted responses
The nonprofit provides evidence of leadership through focusing externally and mobilizing resources for the mission.
Strategic Partnerships
Networks of Collective Impact Efforts
Thought Leadership
Raising Awareness
Community Building
Policy Advocacy
Per Scholas is committed to building impactful relationships with community leaders, and corporate, government, and foundation partners. Per Scholas engages employer and industry partners through our Diverse by Design (DxD) initiative, launched in 2016 with the International Technology Senior Management Forum. DxD aims to promote solutions-driven conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion within tech, produce meaningful content that empowers C-suite leaders to make both valuable and socially impactful business decisions, and provide access to sophisticated customized training and talent sourcing solutions to meet companies’ talent demands while transforming the diversity landscape of their organizations. Over the past year, we have also increased our government advocacy efforts, working in partnership with the America Forward Coalition to press for new Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funding dedicated to expanding evidence-based workforce development interventions.
Source: Nonprofit submitted responses
The nonprofit has an opportunity to tell the story of how the organization adapted to tremendous external changes in the last year.
In response to COVID-19, Per Scholas successfully transitioned all enrolled learners and staff members to a remote work and virtual learning structure and we have continued to enroll thousands of learners into rigorous remote training courses in the past year. We created new virtual volunteering opportunities for our corporate partners, a staff mentoring program to ensure learners feel supported by the entire organization, as well as new processes for remote admissions, learner support, and connecting our graduates with middle-skills job opportunities. We also adapted training curricula and content to fit the remote model, and continue to refine our training with the inclusion of a technology toolkit that includes a laptop with a webcam, headphones, Wi-Fi access, and a Raspberry Pi microcomputer for hands-on learning. To evaluate and improve our remote training, we retained evaluation firm Barrow Street Consulting to produce a series of reports on outcomes and learner experience in remote training courses. The most recent report found that 2021 remote learners are more likely to achieve successful outcomes and recommend Per Scholas’ remote courses than 2020 learners, pointing to the success of our adjustments since the start of the pandemic. We continue to actively assess the success of remote training and find ways to improve our graduation and job attainment outcomes, as well as bolster alumni advancement to ensure that we support alumni over the long-term.
Source: Nonprofit submitted responses
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President & CEO
Chair
Previous: Leadership & Adaptability
This score provides an assessment of the organization's culture and connectedness to the community it serves. Learn more about how and why we rate Culture & Community.
out of 100
Per Scholas has earned a passing score. This score has no effect on the organization's Star Rating. The organization provided data about how it listens to constituents (Constituent Feedback) and its Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) practices (see report below).
The Culture & Community Beacon is comprised of the following metrics:
Constituent Feedback: 100/100 (30% of beacon score)
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion: 100/100 (70% of beacon score)
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70% of beacon score
This organization's score of 100 is a passing score. The organization reported that it is implementing 13 diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices. Charity Navigator believes nonprofit organizations implementing effective DEI policies and practices can enhance a nonprofit's decision-making, staff motivation, innovation, and effectiveness.
We are utilizing data collected by Candid to document and assess the DEI practices implemented by the organization. Nonprofit organizations are encouraged to fill out the Equity Strategies section of their Candid profiles to receive a rating.
Learn more about the methodology.
30% of beacon score
This organization reported that it is collecting feedback from the constituents and/or communities it serves. Charity Navigator believes nonprofit organizations that engage in inclusive practices, such as collecting feedback from the people and communities they serve, may be more effective.
We've partnered with Candid to survey organizations about their feedback practices. Nonprofit organizations can fill out the How We Listen section of their Candid profile to receive a rating.
Learn more about the methodology.
Like the overall Encompass Rating System, the Culture & Community Beacon is designed to evolve as metrics are developed and ready for integration. Below you can find more information about the metrics we currently evaluate in this beacon and their relevance to nonprofit performance.
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