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Ratings & Metrics
*Why a Question Mark Rating?
CharityWatch currently has concerns about this organization and/or is unable to provide complete rating information due to the organization's nondisclosure of financial information. Please see the Analysts' Notes section for a more detailed explanation.
Governance & Transparency
Top Salaries
Unable to Provide Salaries
CharityWatch is unable to provide a range of Top Three Salaries for this charity for the above fiscal reporting year because we lack complete salary data for the organization. Except for officers, directors, and trustees, the IRS does not require breakouts of salaries totaling less than $100,000.
For example, XYZ charity would be required to provide a breakout in its tax form of compensation to its president of $55,000, but would not be required to provide a breakout of $99,000 in compensation to its top medical researcher if that person is not also an officer, director, or trustee of the organization.
This charity reports that compensation to its officers, directors, and trustees is under $100,000 per individual. Donors who would like to view limited salary data for this organization should refer to its tax form, which may be available on the charity's web site or from a number of third-party sources. See CharityWatch's Links page for information on obtaining copies of charity tax forms.
Analysts' Notes
CharityWatch is unable to issue a letter grade rating to Team BlueLine (TBL) at this time due to our inability to obtain a copy of its audited financial statements either directly from the charity or from public sources. CharityWatch analyzes these documents as part of our evaluation process so that we can report on a charity's financial efficiency, salaries, and governance practices in a meaningful way. Charity tax filings often contain information that is inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent, or incomparable. For this reason, analyzing a charity's audited financial statements is an essential part of any meaningful evaluation of a charity's financial activities. In addition, CharityWatch is concerned that Team BlueLine may be reporting a significant amount of fundraising expenses as program expenses. Team BlueLine reports its mission as "supporting officer's and families struggling with a line-of-duty loss of phyiscal/mental injuries," according to its 2023 IRS tax Form 990. The charity reports making $0 grants in 2023 (IRS Form 990, Part IX, lines 1, 2, and 3). It does report that $786,716 of its total expenses of $2,511,221 consisted of "dirext expenses packages cost." However, it is unclear if expenses of $609,000 (printing and publications), $574,027 (postage and shipping), and $103,916 (creative fees) are legitimate program expenses or are rather related to fundraising efforts (including joint costs from a combined educational campaign and fundraising solicitation, SOP 98-2 / ASC 958-720). When audits and/or tax forms are not publicly available, CharityWatch periodically requests these financial documents directly from charities. When a charity declines to provide the requested documents, CharityWatch is unable to rate the charity until such a time as it provides the documents, or we are able to obtain complete documents from a third party. Per TBL's IRS Form 990, Part XII, line 2b, TBL responded "Yes" to the question: "Were the organization's financial statements audited by an independent accountant?" Despite reaching out to TBL by mail and email on August 12, 2024, CharityWatch has not received a response as of the date of this note, April 16, 2025. According to its 2023 IRS Form 990, TBL raised $2,175,192 in contributions and reported $2,511,221 in total expenses in 2023. Formed in 2016, TBL reported just $125,810 in contributions in fiscal 2019 before reporting a drastic increase in contributions in fiscal 2020 that totaled to $1,783,651. In the four-year period from 2020 to 2023, TBL reported raising $8,632,809, which averages to approximately $2,158,202 per year. Its high and low contributions during this period were $2,484,572 in fiscal 2021, and $1,783,651 in fiscal 2020, respectively (IRS Form 990, Schedule A, Part II, Section A). Additionally, per TBL's IRS tax Form 990, TBL had 2 individuals employed in calendar year 2023. However, CharityWatch noted no compensation reported to any Officers, Directors, Trustees, or Key Employees except for $26,000 of "Reportable compensation from the organization..." to Clint Thomas, Executive Director. Thomas reportedly worked an average of 20 hours per week for TBL during 2023 while the other seven members of the Board of Directors each worked a reported 0.5 hours per week. Of the eight individuals on the Board of Directors, six are reported as being independent (IRS Form 990, Part VII, Section A). CharityWatch is able to report salaries and governance information for TBL based on its fiscal 2023 tax filings. However, because a charity's tax filings are not audited or subjected to Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS) and are not required to be presented according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in the United States, CharityWatch cannot rely on the tax form reporting alone to perform a meaningful evaluation of the organization. For these reasons we have issued the organization a "?" rating. If TBL provides a copy of their audited financial statements to CharityWatch in the future, we may update our rating of the organization at that time. Please see the Our Process page to view CharityWatch's rating Criteria & Methodology. |
According to Schedule O of the Team BlueLine (TBL) tax filing for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, TBL reports re: the availability to the public of governing documents, conflict of interest policy, and financial statements (IRS Form 990, Part VI, Section C, Line 19): "No documents available to the public." |