2024-11-30T07:56:16-07:00 2023-12-31 990 2023-01-01 475006681 IN SITU EXPLORERS INSI 9198026103 1204 Village Market Place 245 Morrisville NC 27560 April Smith CEO 9198026103 2024-11-15 1 2023 2024-10-15 13:58:12Z April Christine Smith 109 Tarkington Ct Morrisville NC 27560 255500 0 X www.insituexplorers.org X 2015 NC To make access to science education in North Carolina equitable, impartial, and widely available, while invoking passion and encouraging a better understanding of how science and nature impact our lives. 4 3 2 9 0 0 0 255500 255500 0 0 0 0 0 255500 255500 0 0 0 0 109461 109213 0 0 8350 40815 69808 150276 179021 105224 76479 72912 157748 51643 60000 21269 97748 X To make access to science education in North Carolina equitable, impartial, and widely available, while invoking passion and encouraging a better understanding of how science and nature impact our lives. 0 1 94084 205000 Management of the NC Science Trail-We partner with 102 science education entities across the state to bring awareness to SciEd opportunities for the public. Our partners include public and private museums, science centers, planetariums, wildlife centers, aquariums, zoos, botanical gardens, all of the NC state parks. We expanded our services in 2023 to offer educational resources to classroom teachers. We expanded from 63 to 89 science education partners statewide. So many science venues provide great science education opportunities for visitors and residents to NC, but it is difficult to find all of the information in one place. Our goal is to partner with these organizations, bring awareness to their programs, and reach out to the public through both in-person and digital means, providing entertaining, intriguing, and educational information that encourages science engagement across the state. After the launch of the website in April 2023 we engaged with over 12,000 people through our online content, and we did science experiments with over 1700 kids at 23 statewide science education events. We had 9 volunteers in 2023 serving over 150 volunteer hours. 12000 10000 40000 NC Welcome Center Engagement: We have partnered with all official NC Welcome Centers to attract travelers coming into the state by car who may be interested in science education opportunities and activities. Nearly half of our partners are state parks and North Carolina is known for is natural beauty and natural history. We also have a tremendous number of science education venues that families love to visit while traveling. As such, we have begun putting displays with images and information about our SciEd partners in the NC Welcome Centers. Long-term this partnership will foster SciEd events at Welcome Centers with partners, allowing us to spread 0 0 0 106084 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 X 4 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 NC X April C Smith PhD 9198026103 1204 Village Market Pl 245 Morrisville NC 27560 April C Smith PhD President 25 0 X X X 43500 0 0 Kristen Nightingale Director 1 X 0 0 0 Elizabeth Gilleland PhD Director 1 0 X 0 0 0 Gitanjali Tenja PhD Director 1 0 X 0 0 0 43500 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 500 0 10000 245000 0 0 255500 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 255500 0 0 0 X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 43500 6525 32625 4350 0 0 0 0 49038 49038 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 16675 0 16675 0 17500 17500 25679 25679 14719 10719 4000 5479 5479 0 0 3183 3183 1863 1863 1385 1385 179021 106084 64587 8350 72912 157748 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 72912 157748 50000 60000 0 0 0 1643 0 51643 60000 X 0 4745 21269 93003 21269 97748 72912 157748 76479 0 0 0 0 0 X 0 0 0 X 0 1000 206 10145 10500 21851 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10000 15000 20000 45000 0 1000 10206 25145 30500 66851 0 66851 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 475 475 67326 366851 0.99294 0.0042 X In Situ Explorers maintains a continuous program open for solicitation of funds from governmental units, public charities, and corporate sponsors. Currently, our primary source of support is a governmental unit, but we are looking to diversity our funding in 2025. Our Board of Directors maintains oversight such that activities remain focused on providing science education resources to the public in North Carolina. We manage a program that is a partnership of science education venues across the state. Partnership Fees for that program remain low because most of our partners at this point are non-profits serving their communities. The fees are used to help us provide event and location information for our partners to the public throughout the year. Schedule A, Part II, Line 1 After going through this form this year, I realized that I calculated this part of the taxes for In Situ Explorers incorrectly last year. The 2022 990EZ that I filed last year determined that our public support was calculated at 0.42%, which sounded wrong at the time, but I couldn't prove it. After going through the detailed worksheet from the 990 this year I realized that I should have chosen a different option to describe our funding. Using the calculation from this years form, it appears that our public support last year would have been 32.93%, just slightly less than the required percentage; however, that was only our first year with major funding. This year we nailed it! I will file an amended return as soon as I can. Schedule A, Part II, Line 10 I taught an adult science education class at the NC Arboretum in Asheville North Carolina. Stephen B Smith Stephen is the husband of a board member providing IT Services to the organization 50000 IT/Website Services 0 Form 990, Part III, Line 3 We are no longer conducting adult education classes at the NC Arboretum. We are, instead, choosing to let our NC Science Trail partners teach the classes while we let the public know where they can find those classes. Form 990, Part VI, Section A, Line 2 Family relationship Form 990, Part VI, Section A, Line 9 Board of Directors Contact Information; Kristen Nightingale, kristenkurczak@gmail.com; Elizabeth Gilleland, egilleland@raleighschool.org; Gitanjali Taneja, gitanj@gmail.com Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 11b Board Members were allowed to review the 990 on their own and encouraged to ask questions if any arose Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 12c Our conflicts of interest policy was only introduced at the end of 2022, so each year it will be addressed at a board meeting. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 15 (1) At the end of 2022, the board voted to hire April Smith as Executive Director to run the organization. A systematic review of similar nonprofit jobs in our area was completed by the other board members. April recused herself from the discussion and the vote during the meeting while the remaining board members voted on her salary. (2) After requesting four proposals from various web designers in our area, we realized that we could not afford to pay a firm to build what we needed within our budget. April's husband had the ability to design a website and provide IT services at a price we could afford. The board discussed the various options and agreed that Stephen should be hired, as disclosed on this document, for the needed services. Form 990, Part VI, Section C, Line 19 On our website it says, "We are a 501(c)(3) organization. We will happily make any documentation available to you upon request." Form 990, Part IX, Line 11g Michele Miller Houck is a contractor with extensive experience working with science education non-profits to enhance programming, marketing, partner communications, newsletter development, and event management. Because spring is our busy science education season, I filed for an extension in May, therefore my filing should have been due Nov 15; however, we are located in North Carolina and were affected both personally and professionally by Hurricane Helene. We do not live in an affected area, but we have many partners who are, so we spent much of October sending them aid and assistance. I also have an elderly Aunt who lives in Avery County. We had to evacuate her and bring her to live with us, until we could move belongings her out of her house and into an apartment a few weeks ago. Thank you for your patience with this filing. We have been as speedy as possible during the past few trying months.