The environmental nonprofit sector has a transparency problem. Not because most organizations are dishonest, but because the standards for what counts as accountability are so low that almost anything can qualify. An annual report. A program description. A photo of someone smiling near the thing they are trying to protect. These are not accountability. They are marketing. Reef Without Borders was built around a different standard.

Five Questions to Ask Before You Donate

1. Where does the money actually go?

A nonprofit’s IRS Form 990 is publicly available at ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer and at the nonprofit’s own website if they choose to publish it. The 990 shows exactly how much went to program activities, fundraising, and administration. Industry standards suggest that 75% or more going to programs is healthy. Reef Without Borders publishes our budget allocation publicly at 60% field operations, 25% science and documentation, 10% education, and 5% administration.

2. Can they prove their field credentials?

Conservation organizations are only as good as the expertise of the people doing the work. Look for named, credentialed field staff whose qualifications can be independently verified. Reef Without Borders names our Director of Dive Operations, Dindo Paquibot, a PADI-certified Instructor with 20 years of Philippine reef experience and five years of direct coral nursery work, publicly on our website. We name our science partner, a local marine science institution. These are verifiable.

3. Do they report outcomes or activities?

Activity reporting says we is planning its first coral restoration mission at Kontiki, Mactan, Cebu in Q4 2026s. Outcome reporting says we is planning its first coral restoration mission at Kontiki, Mactan, Cebu in Q4 2026s, tracked their survival, and 73% were alive and growing at 12 months. Reef Without Borders commits to outcome reporting on every mission, with photos, GPS coordinates, and survival data sent to donors after every planting event and published in The Reef Archive.

4. Are they legally accountable?

A registered 501(c)(3) is legally required to file Form 990 annually, maintain governing documents, operate for the public benefit rather than private gain, and meet IRS standards for organizational governance. Reef Without Borders is incorporated as a Texas nonprofit (File No. 806607296, EIN 42-2691547), has filed for 501(c)(3) status, and publishes its governance documents on its website.

5. Do they tell you when things go wrong?

The most trustworthy organizations document failure as honestly as they document success. A coral that does not survive is data. A restoration approach that did not work as expected is a lesson. If a nonprofit only ever reports good news, they are either extremely lucky or not telling you the whole story.

Why Transparency Matters More in Conservation

Environmental nonprofits make claims about outcomes that are hard for donors to verify independently. You cannot dive to the reef to check whether the corals are still there. You cannot see the fish population recovering from your living room. This creates an information gap that honest organizations fill with documentation and dishonest ones fill with marketing.

Reef Without Borders films every dive and publishes the footage publicly. This is not just good donor communication. It is the only way to close the information gap between what we say we are doing and what we are actually doing. If the coral is there, the footage proves it. If it is not, the footage proves that too, and we owe our donors an explanation.

Clarisa Strohmeyer is the Founder and Executive Director of Reef Without Borders, a Houston-based nonprofit dedicated to coral reef restoration in the Philippines and across the Indo-Pacific. Learn more at reefwithoutborders.org/