Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation

CharityWatch is unable to provide a letter grade rating of the Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation (BHOF) at this time due to the charity's failure to respond to CharityWatch's inquiries about its reporting of fundraising expenses. For this reason, we have issued BHOF a "?" rating for its fiscal year-ended 12/31/2022.

CharityWatch sent inquiries to BHOF's CEO via email on 9/20/2023, and again via U.S. mail on 9/28/2023, and has not received a response as of the date of this update on 10/11/2023. If BHOF responds to CharityWatch's questions at a future date, we may update BHOF's rating at that time.

Prior to updating our rating of BHOF for fiscal 2022, CharityWatch must make a judgment as to whether BHOF’s reported improved fundraising efficiency is due to an operating change, a reporting change, or some combination of the two. BHOF’s fundraising efficiency improved significantly during 2014 through 2017 as compared to 2013. In its IRS Forms 990, BHOF reported that it spent approximately $54 to raise each $100 in cash contributions in 2013, as compared to approximately $19-$26 to raise each $100, annually, in 2014-2017. 

To this end, we requested that BHOF respond to the following questions:

1. Please provide a brief explanation for BHOF’s improved annual fundraising efficiency ratio in 2014-2017 as compared to 2013 (as noted above).

2. Please indicate whether any of the following line items in BHOF’s 2022 Form 990 Statement of Functional Expenses include Printing, Mailing, Processing, Caging, Consulting, or Other expenses related to soliciting contributions:  line 11g (Other Fees for Services); line 12 (advertising and promotion); line 13 (Office Expenses); line 19 (Conferences, conventions, and meetings); line 24d (Bank Service Fees); or line 24e (All Other Expenses).

a. If any of the listed line items from #2 above do include expenses related to soliciting contributions, for each line item please provide an expense breakout by dollar amount, function (i.e., program services, M&G, and fundraising), and natural classification. 

b. For each of the line item expense breakouts provided for #2a above, please also indicate which line items specifically are included in the dollar amounts reported on line 26 as an allocation of Joint Costs for each of the three functions.  

3. In 2017, 2016, & 2015, BHOF reported “Catering and Facility” expenses among the line 24 “Other expenses” on the Form 990 Statement of Functional Expenses. These “Catering and Facility” expenses were mostly allocated to Program Services and increased from about 2.0% & 2.5% of BHOF’s reported total expenses in 2016 & 2015, respectively, to about 4.3% of total expenses in 2017 at $183,199. 

a. Did BHOF incur any “Catering and Facility” expenses in 2022? If so, please indicate in which line item(s) of the Form 990 such expenses are reported. 

b. Please confirm that the event(s) described in #3a are not Fundraising Events (i.e., dinners, dances, concerts, auctions, or other fundraising events, the income and direct expenses for which are required to be reported on lines 8a-8c of the Form 990 Statement of Revenue and Schedule G, Part II).

c. If BHOF did conduct Fundraising Events in 2022:

i. Please provide the related dollar amounts that correspond with lines 8a-8c of the Form 990 Statement of Revenue for Other Revenue, Fundraising Events.

ii. Please provide the related functional expense allocation dollar amounts for the direct and indirect expenses, respectively, and indicate in which line item of the Form 990 functional expense statement such amounts are reported. 

iii. Please explain the reason why BHOF did not report the Fundraising Events income and direct expenses on lines 8a-8c of the 2022 Form 990 Statement of Revenue. 

According to the Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation audit of December 31, 2022 (Note 10, Commitments and Contingencies):

"Office Lease - On June 1, 2015, the Foundation entered into a new lease agreement for office space in Arlington, VA. The lease commenced on June 1, 2015 and will expire in May 2026. Under the terms of the lease, the base rent is subject to an annual increase of 2.5%. The entire amount due under the terms of the lease will be recognized in the financial statements pro-rata over the lease term. As part of the lease agreement, the Foundation is required to maintain an irrevocable standby letter of credit in the amount of $81,586."

According to the Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation audit of December 31, 2022 (Note 14, Subsequent Events):

"Subsequent events have been evaluated through June 2, 2023, which is the date the financial statements were available to be issued. This review and evaluation revealed no material event or transaction which would require an adjustment to or disclosure in the accompanying financial statements."