What public documents (e.g., IRS Form 990) list Turning Point USA’s current executive officers and how do they compare?
Executive summary
The principal public documents that list Turning Point USA’s executive officers are the organization’s IRS Form 990 filings and the subsidiary schedules within them — documents available both through the IRS’s e-file public releases and through third‑party aggregators such as ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer and the organization’s own posted PDF filings (which include the 2023 Form 990) [1] [2] [3]. These filings enumerate officer and key‑employee names and titles and, on schedules such as Schedule J and Schedule O, disclose compensation and related‑party transactions, but they reflect the officers at the time each return was filed rather than a real‑time roster [1] [4] [2].
1. What public documents list officers: IRS Form 990 and its schedules
The authoritative public returns for 501(c) charities are IRS Form 990s — the primary place organizations must list their current officers, directors and key employees on Part VII and report compensation on Schedule J and related transactions on Schedule L — and Turning Point USA’s filings follow that model [1] [4]. Form 990s include names and titles, and Schedules (J, L, G, I, etc.) capture additional context such as compensation, business relationships and certain programmatic or fundraising arrangements, which together provide a detailed view of who ran the organization during the filing year [1] [4] [5].
2. Where those documents can be retrieved: IRS, ProPublica, and the group itself
The IRS publishes digital Form 990 filings (including XML data since 2017) and the raw e-file outputs can be downloaded; ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer reconstructs and displays those filings and provides full PDFs and machine‑readable extracts for Turning Point USA [1] [3] [6]. Turning Point USA has also posted its own 2023 Form 990 PDF on its website, giving direct access to the most recently posted return in the source set provided [2]. Other aggregators — GuideStar/Charity Navigator/Instrumentl/TaxExemptWorld — index the same IRS data and provide profile pages that reference the required Form 990 filing status [7] [8] [9] [10].
3. How the lists compare across those public sources
The officer rosters in the IRS filings, the ProPublica reconstructions and the organization’s posted PDF should match because they originate from the same IRS return; ProPublica notes that its pages are reconstructions of IRS data and that the raw data is the authoritative source used for names, titles and compensation [3] [6]. Differences that researchers sometimes see are usually timing artifacts: an amended return, a later e‑file batch, or an older fiscal year’s filing presented side‑by‑side with a newer one — all of which ProPublica flags in its metadata [1] [6]. Aggregators like Charity Navigator and GuideStar also derive their displays from Form 990s and will flag whether a current filing is required or missing, but they do not independently verify real‑time personnel changes beyond what the return states [8] [7].
4. What the filings reveal beyond names — compensation and related transactions
Beyond identifying officer names, Form 990s and Schedules disclose compensation for officers and key employees, loans or business transactions with insiders on Schedule L, and special compensation or travel perks on Schedule J — information that allows comparison of roles versus pay and identification of potential related‑party arrangements in the filing year [1] [4] [5]. ProPublica’s and the IRS’s full filings for Turning Point USA include these schedules when applicable, so a side‑by‑side review across years can show continuity or turnover in executive roles and compensation trends [3] [6].
5. Limits, caveats and sources of bias
Form 990s are retrospective and report status for a fiscal year, so they do not prove who is “current” on a given day; if a researcher needs an up‑to‑the‑minute executive roster, the filings must be supplemented by the organization’s website or news releases — both of which may be subject to organizational framing [2] [3]. Third‑party aggregators streamline access but can lag or reflect amendments differently; ProPublica warns that amended returns may not always be shown or may appear as duplicate links [1] [6]. Finally, watchdogs and rating sites emphasize governance signals (conflict‑of‑interest policies, board review of Form 990) as accountability measures, which can indicate implicit agendas about transparency standards when interpreting the same documents [8] [7].
6. Bottom line for researchers
To identify and compare Turning Point USA’s executive officers, consult the most recent IRS Form 990 and its schedules (accessible via the IRS bulk e‑file releases), the organization’s posted 2023 Form 990 PDF, and ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer reconstruction; cross‑check across those sources for consistency but recognize that filings reflect the roster and compensation for the reported fiscal year rather than a live directory [1] [2] [3]. Where precision about “current” executives is required, the filings are necessary but not sufficient — they must be paired with up‑to‑date organizational disclosures or media reporting, bearing in mind each source’s transparency incentives and limitations [2] [8].