Institute For Social Policy And Understanding
EIN 383633581 · Dearborn, MI · — · research-policy
Address3200 GREENFIELD RD STE 300, Dearborn, MI 48120-1805
Mission · 990 Part I
“ISPU PROVIDES OBJECTIVE RESEARCH AND EDUCATION ABOUT AMERICAN MUSLIMS TO SUPPORT WELL-INFORMED DIALOGUE AND DECISION-MAKING. ISPU IS A NONPARTISAN, NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION THAT BUILDS UNDERSTANDING AND STRENGTHENS COMMUNITIES BY LAYING A FOUNDATION OF FACTS.”
The IRS Form 990 for FY 2024 is due ~Nov 15 of the year after the fiscal close, followed by 3–6 months of IRS processing and 6–12 months before the cleaned data is published. FY 2024 should begin appearing here around mid-to-late 2025. A gap between today and the latest filing does not mean the org hasn't filed.
▸Additional financials & ratios
- Top-officer compensation: 9.8% of revenue
Attestations & Audits
Org-supplied disclosures that have been verified by the Ihsan Standard Editorial Council. Every standard has a Gold tier (★) reached via an Ihsan Standard or accepted third-party audit. An empty section means the org has not yet filled it in — not that they fail the standard.
- Zakat methodology disclosurenot yet attested
- Zakāt al-Fitr timeline commitmentnot yet attested
- Qurbānī / Udhiya timeline enforcementnot yet attested
- Kaffāra fulfillment commitmentnot yet attested
- Annual zakat distribution reportnot yet attested
- Orphan-fund segregation (Qurʾānic amāna)not yet attested
- Restricted-purpose fund segregation (honoring the amāna)not yet attested
- Per-donation tracking & fulfillmentnot yet attested
- Supplier-stack cleanup plan filednot yet attested
- Full supplier-stack audit completednot yet attested
- Taʿāwun Procurement Audit — Muslim community vendor pledgenot yet attested
- Khulafāʾ al-Arḍ Environmental Stewardship Auditnot yet attested
Filing observations & context
1 noteworthy · 1 indicativeSpecific datapoints from Institute For Social Policy And Understanding's most recent IRS Form 990 that warrant a closer look. Each item is computed directly from the org's own public filing — we explain what the datapoint is, what it might mean, and the legitimate reasons it could be present. Read these as context, not conclusions.
- Top officer compensation is a notable share of revenuenoteworthy
Top officer compensation ($137,753) is 9.5% of total revenue.
What this meansThe highest-paid officer's total compensation (W-2 wages + related-org pay + other) exceeds 5% of the org's total revenue for the most recent year.
Why it matters (and what it might not mean)5% isn't a regulatory threshold — it's a sector benchmark Ihsan Standard uses for visibility. Smaller orgs naturally trip this because a single executive salary is a bigger share of a smaller budget; large orgs with the same trip usually have a specific structural reason (a sole-paid CEO at a foundation, etc.). Worth a one-line org explanation, not necessarily concerning.
show underlying numbers
{ "officer_name": "SAHER SELOD", "officer_title": "DIRECTOR OF", "officer_comp": 137753, "total_revenue": 1454023, "ratio": 0.0947 } - Elevated reserves relative to annual expensesindicative
Net assets equal 23.4 months of operating expenses (>18mo threshold).
What this meansNet assets at year-end equal more than 18 months of operating expenses (i.e. the org could run its current programs for over a year and a half without any new revenue).
Why it matters (and what it might not mean)Many nonprofits — particularly endowments, scholarship funds, and orgs with donor-restricted balances — legitimately hold reserves above 18 months. The flag isn't an accusation; it's a prompt to read the org's reserves policy, which should be public for any org sitting on this much liquidity.
show underlying numbers
{ "net_assets": 2569261, "annual_expenses": 1319995, "months_of_reserve": 23.4 }
Where the money went · FY 2023
Form 990 Part IX (Statement of Functional Expenses) split into the four functional buckets, plus automated anomaly detection across the most-asked donor questions.
Expense breakdown · FY 2023
Total $1.28MForm 990 Part IX line items we have on file for this filing (compensation totals + fundraising lines). The full functional-expense col-A/B/C/D split (grants, program, admin, fundraising) was not in the structured extract — the residual sits in “Program & operations” below. Reading note: compensation is NOT the same as “admin overhead” — for orgs running clinics (like IMAN’s FQHC), schools, or in-house programs, most of compensation is program work.
- Compensation & benefits$810K · 63.1%
Form 990 Part IX lines 5–10 — total staff compensation: salaries & wages, payroll taxes, and benefits across everyone the org pays (program, clinical, and support staff), plus any pay to officers, directors, and key employees. The per-person split — including which officers, if any, are paid — is in the Compensation history section below. For orgs running clinics, schools, or in-house programs, most of this is program work, not admin.
- Fundraising$8K · 0.6%
Form 990 Part IX line 11e (professional fundraising) + direct fundraising expenses. Donor acquisition, professional fundraisers, mailings.
- Program & operations (other)$465K · 36.2%
Total expenses minus compensation and fundraising — the residual covering program supplies, occupancy & utilities, professional fees, beneficiary services, medical supplies (for clinics), travel, equipment, and depreciation. ProPublica's structured extract did not include the Part IX functional split for this filing year; the breakdown PDF reconciles which specific lines went where.
Fundraising efficacy · not the primary lens for this org
Institute For Social Policy And Understanding reports $1.60M in contributions on only $8K of fundraising spend (198 : 1) — a ratio that suggests this org isn't fundraising-driven in the conventional sense. The Form 990 “fundraising expense” line item is meant to capture solicitation costs (telemarketing, direct mail, digital ad spend); for universities, masjids, foundations, and orgs primarily supported by major gifts or program revenue, that line is small or zero, and the resulting “ratio” reads as meaningless.
The right operational-efficiency lens for an org like this is reserves, payroll composition, and program-expense ratio — see the financial-anomalies section and the multi-year trend dashboard.
Year-over-year trends · through FY 2023
Arrow color = direction × good-when-upPer-metric direction and magnitude vs. the prior fiscal year. Where the data goes back far enough, the 3-year compound annual growth rate is included — useful for separating one-off spikes from sustained trends.
- Revenue↓ -2.4% YoY$1.62Mprior: $1.67MΔ −$40K3y CAGR +11.4%
Total revenue per Form 990 Part I line 12.
- Contributions↓ -2.6% YoY$1.60Mprior: $1.65MΔ −$42K3y CAGR +11.2%
Form 990 Part I line 1h — gifts, grants, and contributions received.
- Investment income↓ -13.5% YoY$9Kprior: $10KΔ −$1K3y CAGR +152.4%
Form 990 Part VIII line 4 — interest, dividends, and other investment earnings on the org's reserve. For orgs with material reserves, a healthy investment-income trend indicates capital is actually working; near-zero income on a large reserve raises the 'idle capital' question.
- Total expenses→ -0.7% YoY$1.28Mprior: $1.29M3y CAGR +9.4%
Form 990 Part I line 18 — total functional expenses.
- Top-officer compensation→ 1.9% YoY$160Kprior: $157K3y CAGR +0.2%
Form 990 Part IX line 5 — aggregate compensation for officers, directors, key employees, and the five highest-paid employees. Growing in line with revenue is expected for healthy orgs; growing faster than revenue is the question worth asking.
- Total compensation & benefits↑ 16.8% YoY$810Kprior: $693KΔ +$117K3y CAGR +8.1%
Officer comp + other salaries + payroll tax — total people-cost of running the org.
- Net assets↑ 16.9% YoY$2.42Mprior: $2.07MΔ +$350K3y CAGR +26.1%
Form 990 Part X line 33 — assets minus liabilities at year end.
- Months of reserve↑ 17.7% YoY22.6 moprior: 19.2 moΔ +3.4 mo3y CAGR +15.3%
Net assets ÷ (annual expenses ÷ 12). The trend matters more than the absolute number: a falling reserve year-over-year is the early warning sign of fragility, even if it's still above the 3-month floor.
Financial context · plain math
Automated checks across Form 990 Part IX and Part VII Section B. We publish the math and the source; we do not adjudicate intent. Many of these have legitimate explanations specific to the org’s mission — read each card’s context note before forming a judgment. The org has full right of reply.
Top-officer compensation: elevated share of revenue
9.8%ContextTop-officer comp was $160K on revenue of $1.62M — 9.8%.
ContextThis is the line on Form 990 Part VII Section A that aggregates compensation for officers, directors, key employees, and the five highest-paid employees. It is NOT just the CEO. Orgs running clinics with senior medical staff (IMAN's Federally Qualified Health Center, for example), licensed professional teams, or multi-physician practices will legitimately show higher numbers here. Read the per-individual breakdown before judging.
Source: Form 990 Part VII Section A (top-officer compensation total)
See compensation history below for the per-individual breakdown →
Engagement-track path:if a specific explanation fits the org (new-org ramp, capital campaign, FQHC medical-staff payroll, multi-year grant schedule), the org can sign in, attach the supporting filing detail, and a contextual note will publish alongside the relevant card. The numbers stay — the reader gets the reasoning.
▸Multi-year history
click to expand
Multi-year history
click to expand| Year | Revenue | Expenses | Net assets | Contributions | Officer/KE comp | Inv. income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $1.6M | $1.3M | $2.4M | $1.6M | $160K | $9K |
| 2022 | $1.7M | $1.3M | $2.1M | $1.6M | $157K | $10K |
| 2021 | $1.4M | $889K | $1.7M | $1.4M | $164K | $3K |
| 2020 | $1.2M | $981K | $1.2M | $1.2M | $159K | $564 |
| 2019 | $983K | $973K | $1.0M | $1.0M | $151K | $182 |
| 2018 | $1.1M | $1.0M | $987K | $985K | $151K | $209 |
| 2017 | $868K | $1.2M | $930K | $596K | $122K | $562 |
| 2016 | $740K | $1.0M | $1.3M | $513K | $117K | $495 |
| 2015 | $1.7M | $757K | $1.6M | $1.5M | $184K | $249 |
| 2014 | $729K | $598K | $616K | $723K | $150K | $220 |
| 2013 | $924K | $564K | $486K | $919K | $205K | $0 |
| 2012 | $514K | $722K | $126K | $515K | $99K | $0 |
| 2011 | $586K | $593K | $335K | $546K | $0 | $0 |
Ethical supplier stack — strength on record
No widely-flagged vendors were detected on Institute For Social Policy And Understanding's public website during our most recent scan. This covers analytics, payment, and SSO vendors visible in the rendered HTML, the donor-page network log, and the site’s DNS records — but not back-office tools (CRM, accounting, ad-tech) that don’t appear publicly. On the publicly-scannable supplier surface, Institute For Social Policy And Understanding is among the cleanest in the cohort.
Even with a clean public-side stack, the Ihsan Standard engagement track offers a further audit at zero org cost during the pilot: the Khulafāʾ al-Arḍ Stewardship Audit (environmental footprint of sites and vendors). See the Attestations & Audits section above.
Method: automatic vendor detection from public website HTML — scope is limited to what the org makes visible on the site. See standards for the full vendor rubric.
Compensation history
Form 990 Part VII Section A · 12 filings on record
Every officer, director, key employee, and highest-compensated employee with reported pay. Recent year is shown by default — switch tabs for prior years or the unique-people roll-up.
FY 2023
3 paid · 16 unpaid board · total $322K| Name | Title | From org | Related orgs | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saher Selod | Director Of | $121K | $0 | $17K | $138K |
| Tuqa Nusairat | Executive Di | $109K | $0 | $13K | $122K |
| Nadia Ahmed | Finance Dire | $46K | $0 | $16K | $62K |
▸Verticals · detected automatically
11 detected · click to expand
Verticals · detected automatically
11 detected · click to expandSignals automatically extracted from public website data on https://www.ispu.org— please verify against the source link before relying on any single tag. “Unknown” means no evidence was found, not that the org doesn’t offer it.
Evidence captured
- Accepts appreciated stockOrg accepts gifts of publicly traded securities.indicative“option. got stock? you can quickly make an outright gift of appreciated securities. your will or living trust have the flexibility to give to”Detected automatically from public website data — please verify.View source →
- Accepts DAF giftsOrg accepts donor-advised-fund grants.yes“20-4778 or info@ispu.org for our brokerage account details. donor advised funds do you have a donor advised fund (daf)? that is, a charita”Detected automatically from public website data — please verify.View source →
- Accepts cryptoOrg accepts cryptocurrency donations.indicative“he qr code at the button below. ispu on venmo ispu on zelle cryptocurrency giving to ispu is easier than ever with gifts of cryptocurr”Detected automatically from public website data — please verify.View source →
- Accepts real estateyes“unique planning benefits. if you are interested in making a property donation, please email ispu's director of development, michelle gale”Detected automatically from public website data — please verify.View source →
- Estate & wasiyya (planned giving)Inheritance- and estate-based giving program — sharia-compliant wills (wasiyya), bequests, charitable trusts, life-insurance beneficiary designations, and similar instruments by which donors include the org in their estate plan.yes“ontact nadia ahmed at nahmed@ispu.org for more information. planned giving planned giving is for donors who think about the future str”Detected automatically from public website data — please verify.View source →
- Corporate matching programEmployer-match platform (Benevity, etc.) advertised.yes“mpact of your gift to ispu by asking if your employer has a matching gift program, donating a sum equal to whatever you raise or dona”Detected automatically from public website data — please verify.View source →
- Corporate match widgetindicative
Evidence found in markup — view
00:36+00:00" /> <meta property="og:image" content="https://doublethedonation.com/api/img/powered-by.png" /> <meta name="twitter:card" conte
Detected automatically from public website data — please verify.View source → - Form 990 linked from websiteMost recent IRS Form 990 directly linked.yes“out our work our staff our board our scholars annual report form 990 ispu provides objective research and education about americ”Detected automatically from public website data — please verify.View source →
- Annual report linkedAnnual report posted on the site.yes“us our team about our work our staff our board our scholars annual report form 990 ispu provides objective research and education abo”Detected automatically from public website data — please verify.View source →
- Board members listed publiclyGovernance board members named on the website.yes“facebook-f linkedin-in instagram youtube search search ispu board of directors - institute for social policy and understanding skip to con”Detected automatically from public website data — please verify.View source →
- Valid SSL on donate pageDonation forms served over valid HTTPS.indicative
Evidence found in markup — view
https://www.ispu.org
Detected automatically from public website data — please verify.View source →
In their own words · Schedule O
Supplemental narratives the org wrote on IRS Form 990 Schedule O — program-activity descriptions, governance explanations, and answers to specific 990 line items. Useful primary-source context that doesn’t fit into the structured fields elsewhere on this page.
- FORM 990, PAGE 6, PART VI, LINE 11BFY 2024
THE FINANCE DIRECTOR SENDS THE FORM 990 TO THE FINANCIAL OFFICER AND HE/SHE WILL SEND IT TO THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WHO WILL THEN SEND IT TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS TO REVIEW.
- FORM 990, PAGE 6, PART VI, LINE 12CFY 2024
THE CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLICY IS MONITORED FOR COMPLIANCE BY REVIEWING THE AGREEMENT THAT IS SIGNED, WHICH REQUESTS THE DISCLOSURE OF ANY POSSIBLE CONFLICTS
- FORM 990, PAGE 6, PART VI, LINE 15AFY 2024
THE ORGANIZATION RELIES ON SURVEYS AND DATA THAT PROVIDE INFORMATION ON COMPARABLE SALARIES.