Mission: SEE PART III, LINE 1.
Evidence Action Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization, with an IRS ruling year of 2013, and donations are tax-deductible.
Is this your nonprofit? Access the Nonprofit Portal to submit data and download your rating toolkit.
Important note on the timeliness of ratings
The IRS is significantly delayed in processing nonprofits' annual tax filings (Forms 990). As a result, the Finance & Accountability score for Evidence Action Inc. is outdated and the overall rating may not be representative of its current operations.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.
Encompass Rating System by Charity Navigator
Overall Score
100
out of 100
This charity's score is a passing score.
This overall score is calculated from multiple beacon scores: 35% Finance & Accountability, 50% Impact & Results, 10% Leadership & Adaptability, and 5% Culture & Community
Learn about the Encompass Rating System: Overview | FAQ | Release Notes
Finance & Accountability
This score provides an assessment of a nonprofit's financial health (stability, efficiency and sustainability) and its commitment to governance practices and policies.
Finance & Accountability Score
100
out of 100
The score earned by Evidence Action Inc. is a passing score
This V6 of the Finance & Accountability Score provides a baseline measure of an organization's health including the indicators listed in the report below.
This score represents Form 990 data from 2019, the latest year electronically filed and published by the IRS.
Finance & Accountability Report
100
of 100 points
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Program Expense Ratio
89.11%
Higher effect on score
More data
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.
Program Expense Percentage | Amount of Credit Received |
|---|---|
| 70% or higher | Full Credit |
| 60% - 69.9% | Partial Credit |
| 50% - 59.9% | Zero Points for Program Expense Score |
| Below 50% | Zero Points for Both Program Expense AND Liabilities to Assets Scores |
Source: IRS Form 990
Board Composition
6/7 Independent
Higher effect on score
Charity Navigator looks for at least 3 board members, with more than 50% of those members identified as independent (not salaried).
The presence of an independent governing body is strongly recommended by many industry professionals to allow for full deliberation and diversity of thinking on governance and other organizational matters.
Source: IRS Form 990
Independent Audit or Financial Review
Audited
Higher effect on score
An Audit, Review, or Compilation provides important information about financial accountability and accuracy. Organizations are scored based on their Total Revenue Amount:
Total Revenue Amount | Expectation to Receive Credit |
|---|---|
| $1 million or higher | Expected to complete an audit |
| $500,000 - $1 million | Expected to complete an audit, review, or compilation |
| Less than $500,000 | No expectation (removed from scoring methodology) |
Source: IRS Form 990
Liabilities to Assets Ratio
1.79%
Lower effect on score
The Liabilities to Assets Ratio is determined by Total Liabilities divided by Total Assets (most recent 990). This ratio is an indicator of an organization’s solvency and/or long-term sustainability.
Liabilities to Assets Ratio | Amount of Credit Received |
|---|---|
| Less than 50% | Full Credit |
| 50% - 59.9% | Partial Credit |
| 60% or more | No Credit |
Source: IRS Form 990
Website
Listed
Lower effect on score
Charity Navigator looks for a website on the Form 990 as an accountability and transparency metric.
Nonprofits act in the public trust and reporting publicly on activities is an important component.
Source: IRS Form 990
Conflict of Interest Policy
Listed
Lower effect on score
Charity Navigator looks for the existence of a conflict of interest policy on the Form 990 as an accountability and transparency measure.
This policy protects the organization and by extension those it serves, when it is considering entering into a transaction that may benefit the private interest of an officer, director and/or key employee of the organization.
Source: IRS Form 990
Board Meeting Minutes
Documented
Lower effect on score
Charity Navigator looks to confirm on the Form 990 that the organization has this process in place as an accountability and transparency measure.
An official record of the events that take place during a board meeting ensures that a contemporaneous document exists for future reference.
Source: IRS Form 990
Document Retention and Destruction
Listed
Lower effect on score
Charity Navigator looks for the existence of a document retention and destruction policy per the Form 990 as an accountability and transparency measure.
This policy establishes guidelines for the handling, backing up, archiving and destruction of documents. These guidelines foster good record keeping procedures that promote data integrity.
Source: IRS Form 990
Whistleblower Policy
Listed
Lower effect on score
Charity Navigator looks for the existence of a whistleblower policy per the Form 990 as an accountability and transparency measure.
This policy outlines procedures for handling employee complaints, as well as a confidential way for employees to report financial or other types of mismanagement.
Source: IRS Form 990
Additional Information
Unscored
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Total Revenue and Expenses
This chart displays the trend of revenue and expenses over the past several years for this organization, as reported on their IRS Form 990.
Salary of Key Persons
Presented here are up to five of this organization's highest compensated employees. 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
KANIKA BAHL, CEO
$307,533
JOHN DE WET, CHIEF FIN. & ADMIN. OFF/SEC/TREAS.
$158,656
KAREN LEVY, SR. DIR., INNOVATION
$148,802
GRACE HOLLISTER, CH. ENG. OFF./GLOBAL DEWORMING LEAD
$146,201
BRETT SEDGEWICK, DIR., DEWORM THE WORLD INITIATIVE
$128,060
Source: IRS Form 990 (page 7), filing year 2019
Business Master File Data
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
Activities:
Activity data not reported from the IRS
Foundation Status:
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)
Affiliation:
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)
Data Sources: IRS Forms 990
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).
Pandemic Response
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.
Evidence Action Inc. reported being impacted by COVID-19 in the following ways:
Program Delivery
Revenue
Staffing
Administrative Capacity
Balance Sheet
How COVID-19 impacted the organization's operations financially:
The organization’s financials were impacted in multiple ways, though we were able to adapt under these difficult circumstances. One of the main adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic was to our Deworm the World Initiative, which helps governments deworm children using a school-based delivery model. With schools closed for most of the year due to lockdowns, program activities and expenditures dropped by approximately 35%. This led directly to a lower recovery of indirect costs, which are critical to paying for the operations of the organization. Despite this, we managed to make up this gap from reserves and retained our full staff complement throughout the year. Throughout the pandemic, Evidence Action’s donors remain supportive. In mid-2020 we were able to raise urgent funding that provided critical supplies to help prevent the spread of COVID in communities where Dispensers for Safe Water operates, and giving from individuals increased in 2020 compared to 2019.
How COVID-19 impacted the organization's delivery of programs:
Our Dispensers for Safe Water program adapted to ensure continued access to safe water by distributing enough chlorine for several months. We also carried out emergency distributions of soap, disinfectant, and hygiene education materials by our community-elected volunteers to help prevent COVID. Our Deworm the World Initiative also adapted significantly. In Pakistan, we worked with several states to support a new round of deworming treatments. In Kenya, following school closures, we helped the government restart school-based deworming in early 2021 and successfully prototyped a new method to validate deworming coverage with social distancing. In Nigeria, we are working with multiple states to restart school-based deworming treatments. In India, we helped shift school-based deworming programs to community-based delivery to reach children at home, along with providing iron and folic acid supplementation. We also supported states with data analysis, communications, and contact tracing.
How this organization adapted to changing conditions caused by COVID-19:
In addition to adapting our programs to accommodate lockdowns and school closures, we undertook a tremendous amount of risk analysis and planning to determine how best to keep our teams safe while ensuring continued program impact, constituting a global rapid response team that met regularly to discuss emerging program and organizational risks, and develop and monitor related action plans. We increased flexibility in leave policies for all staff globally, providing for additional COVID-related leave. As a global organization, many of our staff are accustomed to working virtually. We therefore shifted quickly into remote work across many of the countries where we operate, leveraging online and cloud-based systems while avoiding major disruptions to daily tasks. We also suspended international and domestic travel for a significant portion of 2020, relying on these same systems to continue our work and local teams’ ability to continue work in the field when sufficiently safe to do so.
Innovations the organization intends to continue permanently after the pandemic:
Most of the changes we conducted during the pandemic, in particular those related to program delivery, have been in response to adverse situations and will not be permanent, as previous modes of working have been optimized through evidence-based iterative processes of improvement over many years. The innovations or changes that have seen positive benefits will require more data to analyze whether we will continue using them. This type of analysis is currently taking place in Kenya by our MLE team to validate the promising results from a pilot we conducted that replaced in-person interviews for coverage validation of our deworming data with remote coverage validation using phone calls. In the preliminary results, the pilot, which was implemented to protect our frontline workers and beneficiaries' communities, showed similar levels of data quality and, if proven to be as robust as the traditional method, could be a more cost-effective way of conducting coverage validation in the future.
Previous: Finance & Accountability / Next: Leadership & Adaptability
Impact & Results
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.
Impact & Results Score
100
out of 100
Evidence Action Inc. is highly cost-effective, earning a passing score.
Impact
$0.50 provides clean water to a person for a year.
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Impact & Results Report
100
of 100 points
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Rated Program
Program
Dispensers for Safe Water
Activities
The nonprofit distributes water purification systems to beneficiaries.
Program Type
Water Purification
Beneficiaries Served
People living in poverty
Program Geography
Sub-Saharan Africa
Time Period of Data
1/1/18 to 12/31/18
Outcomes and Cost
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.
Outcome Metric
A year of clean water provided to a person.
Outcome Data Source
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.
Output data collected during the program. The nonprofit publicly reports data on how many purifiers it distributes and how many people a purifier serves, which we use to calculate how many person-years of clean water a nonprofit provides.
Method for Attributing Outcomes
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).
We estimate the number of person-years of clean water the nonprofit provides by comparing the person-years actually achieved to the person-years that would have been achieved even in the absence of the nonprofit (the "counterfactual"). Some beneficiaries might have accessed clean water from other providers or on their own; these counterfactual successes must be netted out of the successes we observe. Otherwise, we would be attributing a change in a person's life (gaining clean water) to the nonprofit when it would have happened anyway. Few nonprofits estimate the counterfactual themselves, so we construct our own counterfactual estimate based on research and publicly available data. We research the average rate with which clean water access is increasing year over year in that location, and assume that, if the nonprofit had not intervened, that trend would have continued.
Cost Data Source
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.
Cost Calculation
$4,285,899 program costs + $0 partner costs + $0 beneficiary costs = $4,285,899 total costs
Impact and Determination
We calculate impact, defined as the change in outcomes attributable to a program divided by the cost to achieve those outcomes.
Impact Calculation
$4,285,899 total costs / 9,144,994 person-years of clean water = roughly $0.50 provides clean water to a person for a year.
Benchmark for Rating
Impact & Results scores of water purification programs are based on the cost to provide clean water relative to the market cost that a person incurs to buy water in that country. Programs receive an Impact & Results score of 100 if they provide water for less than 75% of the estimated market costs, and a score of 75 if they do so for less than 125%. If a nonprofit reports impact but doesn't meet the benchmark for cost-effectiveness, it earns a score of 50.
Determination
Highly cost-effective
Analysis Details
Analysis conducted in 2019 by ImpactMatters. An analyst searched the Form 990s, annual reports, audited financials and the website of the nonprofit to calculate impact and rate cost-effectiveness. A second analyst conducted quality control.
Additional Information
Unscored
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Largest Programs
Evidence Action Inc. reported its three largest programs on its FY 2019 Form 990 as:
$12,720,447
Spent in most recent FY
59%
Percent of program expenses
DEWORM THE WORLD INITIATIVE: EVIDENCE ACTION'S DEWORM THE WORLD INITIATIVE HELPS TO TRANSLATE EVIDENCE INTO WIDESPREAD PRACTICE BY ADVOCATING FOR SCHOOL-BASED DEWORMING TO POLICYMAKERS AND PROVIDING T ... (More)
$4,848,417
Spent in most recent FY
22%
Percent of program expenses
DISPENSERS FOR SAFE WATER PROGRAM: CHLORINE DISPENSERS ARE AN INNOVATIVE, LOW-COST APPROACH PROVEN TO INCREASE RATES OF HOUSEHOLD CHLORINATION OF DRINKING WATER IN RURAL AREAS OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA. C ... (More)
$3,718,339
Spent in most recent FY
17%
Percent of program expenses
EVIDENCE ACTION BETA/ACCELERATOR: FOLLOWING A STRATEGIC REVIEW IN 2019, EVIDENCE ACTION BETA WAS RECONSTITUTED AS EVIDENCE ACTION ACCELERATOR WITH A NEW AREA OF FOCUS. CERTAIN ONGOING BETA PROJECTS TH ... (More)
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Leadership & Adaptability
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.
Leadership & Adaptability Score
100
out of 100
The score earned by Evidence Action Inc. is a passing score.
Encompass Rating V4 provides an evaluation of the organization's Leadership & Adaptability through the nonprofit organization submitting a survey response directly to Charity Navigator.
Leadership & Adaptability Report
100
of 100 points
Mission
The nonprofit organization presents evidence of strategic thinking through articulating the organization’s mission
Evidence Action aims to be a world leader in scaling evidence-based and cost-effective programs to reduce the burden of poverty.
Source: Nonprofit submitted responses
Vision
The nonprofit organization presents evidence of strategic thinking through articulating the organization’s vision.
Evidence Action is building a world where hundreds of millions of people in the poorest places have better opportunities and their lives are measurably improved.
Source: Nonprofit submitted responses
Strategic Goals
The nonprofit organization presents evidence of strategic thinking and goal setting through sharing their most important strategic goals.
Goal One: Deworm the World: Help governments eliminate intestinal worms as a public health problem among children, and as a result, improving their health, access to education, and livelihoods potential.
Goal Type: Grow, expand, scale or increase access to the existing programs and services.
Goal Two: Dispensers for Safe Water: Deliver free and reliable safe water access to rural communities, reducing diarrheal disease and improving and saving the lives of children under 5.
Goal Type: Grow, expand, scale or increase access to the existing programs and services.
Goal Three: Accelerator: Identify evidence-based interventions with high potential for cost-effective impact and scale those that can measurably improve lives through robust delivery models.
Goal Type: Grow, expand, scale or increase access to the existing programs and services.
Source: Nonprofit submitted responses
Leadership Development
The nonprofit provides evidence of investment in leadership development
Describe an investment in leadership
Evidence Action invests in leadership development opportunities across levels for its staff. Our US-based staff has access to leadership development courses through an external organization called The Management Center, based in Washington DC, and our HR team is researching other local training programs for our employees in the other countries we operate. All US-based staff are encouraged to take a training course called “Working for Change” which helps people define and “own” their workflows, and those in a managerial position receive an additional course in project management and effective leadership. We hold regular meetings for global and regional management teams that discuss key elements of leadership and contribute to skill building.
Source: Nonprofit submitted responses
Mobilizing for Mission
The nonprofit provides evidence of leadership through focusing externally and mobilizing resources for the mission.
This organization mobilizes for mission in the following ways:
Strategic Partnerships
Networks of Collective Impact Efforts
Thought Leadership
Raising Awareness
Community Building
What are this organization’s external mobilizaton efforts?
Evidence Action’s work is inherently tied to the work of our partners. All of our programs operate in close coordination with national and sub-national governments, either through our role as a technical assistance partner or through direct implementation. In addition, our programs are built on strong community networks, including teachers who are trained to deliver deworming medication to children at school, and community volunteers who educate communities about the importance of using dispensers to ensure their water is safe to drink. We also regularly engage with research institutions to assess the performance and impact of our programs; work closely with other NGOs to advocate for policy interventions; and collaborate with private institutions to increase the impact of our programs. We are committed to sharing and helping others replicate how we translate research and evidence into at-scale impact, by participating in communities of practice, strategic events, and conferences.
Source: Nonprofit submitted responses
Story of Adaptability
The nonprofit has an opportunity to tell the story of how the organization adapted to tremendous external changes in the last year.
During the pandemic, Evidence Action was able to continue program operations and provide additional support to the communities we serve. By leveraging existing resources and relationships, we adapted our program delivery to enable the continuation of high-impact and cost-effective interventions in geographies where such programming is essential for maintaining the health of populations. Our Dispensers for Safe Water program adapted its model to ensure communities had continued access to safe water. In mid-2020, we undertook an emergency response to distribute soap, disinfectant, and hygiene education materials to +67,000 communities with the help of our community-elected volunteers we call promoters. Following initial COVID disruptions, by Oct. 2020 we repaired or replaced +5,000 dispensers and delivered approximately 500,000 liters of chlorine, keeping 27,000 dispensers stocked to provide safe water through Jan. 2021 before returning to normal operations. Our Deworm the World Initiative has worked to support governments in adapting school-based deworming programs in the midst of school closures. In Pakistan, we are working with provincial governments to conduct a new round of deworming treatments beginning July 2021. Following school closures in Kenya, we helped the government restart school-based deworming in early 2021, and successfully prototyped a new method to validate deworming coverage while maintaining social distancing. In Nigeria, we helped the government safely launch a new deworming program in Lagos in May 2021 and are working in other states to restart school-based treatment. In India, we helped the government shift school-based deworming and iron and folic acid supplementation programs to community-based delivery, providing children with continued access to treatment at home. We also used our analytics capabilities to support state governments' COVID-19 response with rapid data analysis, communications materials, and patient and contact tracing.
Source: Nonprofit submitted responses
Previous: Leadership & Adaptability
Culture & Community
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.
Culture & Community Score
100
out of 100
Evidence Action Inc. has earned a passing score. The organization provided data about how it listens to constituents (Constituent Feedback) (see report below).
The Culture & Community Beacon is comprised of the following metrics:
Constituent Feedback: 100/100 (100% of beacon score)
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion: Not Scored
Culture & Community Report
100
of 100 points
This beta feature is currently viewable only on desktop or tablet screens. Check back later for updates.
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
This organization has not provided information regarding the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices it is presently implementing. As such, the organization has not earned a score on this metric. Charity Navigator believes nonprofit organizations implementing effective DEI policies and practices can enhance a nonprofit's decision-making, staff motivation, innovation, and effectiveness.
Methodology
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.
Constituent Feedback
100/100 points
100% 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.
View this organization's Constituent Feedback Practices
Methodology
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.
Analysis and Research
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.
