ACHS's most recent IRS financial disclosure

A 501(c)(3) non-profit like the American Council on Science and Health, is required to file IRS form 990 each year. The group's latest 990 filing is for fiscal year July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021. 

In that filing, which was submitted February 24, 2022, one finds that ACSH had total revenue of $901,398, of which $875,665 came from contributions and grants and $25,932 was investment income. The prior year contributions and grants amounted to $1,262,446, so ACSH experienced a roughly 30 percent year-to-year drop. 

Employee compensation consumed slightly over $500,000 of the total revenue, or 56 percent. Legal, accounting, professional fundraising, and investment management fees totaled $94,000; another 10 percent of total revenue. Total functional expenses were $980,000. Total assets dropped from $811,720 to $702,306.

ACSH's annual revenue bounces up and down, but among the past five years the revenue in fiscal year ending 2021 was the second worst — the year after what was easily ACSH's best performance of the five years. Perhaps covid accounts for the downturn.

To put ACSH's recent finances in context, its total revenue for fiscal year ending 1985 was $856,216. So, to have merely kept pace with inflation over 36 years, the small group — which in 2020-2021 consisted of four employees — would have had needed total revenue of $2.16 million. In real dollars ACSH's revenue shrank by nearly 60 percent from 1985 to 2021. In the best of the six recently filed years, ACSH fell about $800,000 short of inflation adjusted parity with its 1984-1985 revenue. ACHS's revenue has dropped dramatically since it reached $2.4 million in 2015.

Center for Science in the Public Interest, which Elizabeth Whelan considered her major adversary, had total revenue of $12.7 million in the fiscal year ending June 2021, and far higher revenue than ACSH in all of the years for which data are provided.

See more extensive ACSH financial data at ProPublica.