Donors deserve to know exactly what happens to their money. Not in a general way. Not in a way that points to a PDF buried in a website. In a specific, mission-by-mission, coral-by-coral way that makes the connection between giving and impact visible and undeniable. That is the standard Reef Without Borders holds itself to, and this article is part of how we meet it.

The Budget Breakdown

Field operations include all costs directly associated with getting trained divers into the water at restoration sites: boat transport, fuel, dive equipment maintenance, oxygen and air fills, coral nursery construction materials, fragment collection and transplanting supplies, and fees to our field partners in Cebu, including our Director of Dive Operations.

Science and documentation includes the costs of our partnership with the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute, the underwater camera and video equipment that documents every mission, data management for The Reef Archive, and the production of donor impact reports with GPS coordinates, photos, and survival data after every planting event.

Community education funds the Coral and Kin ocean literacy program for Filipino-American youth in Houston and school communities in Cebu, developed in partnership with Philippine marine scientists.

Administration and fundraising covers website maintenance, legal compliance, accounting, and the costs of communicating with donors and grant funders. We keep this category as small as possible.

What a Donation Actually Does: The Impact Per Dollar

• $25 covers dive equipment maintenance for one mission day, keeping our team operational underwater.
• $50 maintains our underwater camera housing for one full filming mission, ensuring every dive is documented.
• $100 plants and tracks 10 coral fragments with GPS recording, photography, and 6 and 12-month follow-up. This is the Adopt-A-Coral tier.
• $250 funds a full day reef survey including baseline documentation, species count, and archival footage.
• $500 covers boat transport and dive fees for a complete Reef Rescue mission at a named Cebu reef site.
• $1,000+ funds a complete Reef Rescue dive including science partnership fees, full production, and a dedicated donor impact report with your name in the mission materials.

How We Report Back to Donors

Reef Without Borders does not make donors wait for an annual report. After each mission, every donor who funded that mission receives a full impact update: photos from the dive, GPS coordinates for planted corals, video footage from the mission, and the survival data at 6 and 12 months. This per-mission reporting model means that a donor who gives in January knows what happened to their coral by July.

This transparency is not a marketing strategy. It is a commitment that comes from the founder’s belief that donors who trust us with their money have a right to know exactly what it achieved. If a transplanted coral does not survive, we document that too. Accountability means reporting what you find, not just what you hoped for.

Financial Oversight

Reef Without Borders is governed by a three-member Board of Directors that includes Rosalinda Maddoux, CPA, a licensed accountant with 17 years of tax compliance expertise who serves as Treasurer. All transactions above $2,500 require dual authorization from both the Executive Director and the Treasurer. Annual financial statements are available to donors upon request. After our first complete fiscal year, we will publish our Form 990 on our Impact and Transparency page.

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/