Spotlight on Maryland reporter Patrick Hauf’s recent report on the Baltimore, MD nonprofit We Our Us shows that the state awarded a $6 million contract to the charity even as the organization has lagged in making required tax filings public. The situation has drawn criticism from nonprofit accounting experts over basic transparency and governance practices.
After earlier Spotlight on Maryland reports, We Our Us filed its fiscal 2023 IRS Form 990, but its fiscal 2024 return, which was due last year, is still not public as of mid-February 2026. The nonprofit’s operations director, Corey Barnes, claimed the organization recently filed the overdue 2024 return but declined to provide a copy to the news outlet.
CharityWatch CEO and Executive Director, Laurie Styron, told Hauf that if the tax Form 990 has been signed and filed with the IRS, it should provide a copy to any member of the public who asks for it:
“There’s no reason that a charity wouldn’t be able to provide that to any member of the public who asks for it,” Styron told Spotlight on Maryland.
Styron and Ohio State accounting professor Brian Mittendorf agreed that the charity’s 2023 tax filing appeared to omit multiple items that matter for accountability. For example, Styron noted that the charity failed to include its prior year financial activities on its 2023 tax filing. The organization’s tax filing also revealed that it lacks key governance policies such as a whistleblower policy and conflict-of-interest policy.
Styron warned that the combination of late filings and weak reporting is itself a red flag:
“There’s potentially some money missing here. It’s concerning that the tax filings are late, but it’s also concerning that the tax filing they did file for 2023 is really sloppy from what we observe.”
We Our Us’s 2023 tax filing indicates that the organization relied almost completely on taxpayer dollars for its revenue that year, with more than $1.3 million of its total $1.5 million in total revenue taking the form of government grants.
Spotlight On Maryland reported that the contract in question was awarded through Maryland’s Department of Juvenile Services via a non-competitive procurement process. The media outlet also reported that Maryland’s nonprofit database listed We Our Us as “not current” with its state filing requirements.
When a nonprofit is positioned to operate largely on public funds, the public has a right to clear, timely reporting that demonstrates financial capacity and responsible oversight. Styron told Spotlight on Maryland that delayed filings, incomplete reporting, and concerns raised in the story create a picture of an organization that may not be prepared to administer a major taxpayer-funded contract:
“When you’re a taxpayer and you’re subsidizing a charity’s existence, you want to know that your tax dollars are in good hands. There’s a difference between a one-time lapse in judgment or a reporting issue and a pattern over a long period of time of a lack of accountability,” said Styron.
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