Company: DARE
Filing Date: 2025-04-24
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001401914-25-000014
Chunk: 35

Company: Dare Bioscience, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-24
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 35
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 careful review, our Board determined, consistent with the recommendation of our Compensation Committee, to award an aggregate amount of performance bonuses to all our employees that represents a 50% achievement level of the performance goals, and requested management provide a recommendation to the Board as to the allocation of such aggregate amount among the Company’s employees. In

2025 Proxy Statement | Page 24

making this determination, our Board considered a wide-range of factors, including: whether the goal had been met, and if not met, the reasons it was not met; the degree to which progress occurred toward the achievement of a goal; and the level of significance of achieving each goal to our business. Our Board also considered our cash resources and the importance of rewarding performance and incentivizing our employees. In February 2025, our Board and Compensation Committee met to consider management’s recommendation as to the allocation of the aggregate amount of performance bonuses to all our employees. As part of management's recommendation, Ms. Johnson recommended that, for purposes of determining her performance bonus, her percentage of achievement be less than the percentage of achievement determined for other employees to allow a greater portion of the total pool of funds to be allocated to employees below the vice president level. After careful review, our Board determined, consistent with the recommendation of our Compensation Committee, to apply a 70% achievement level to the performance goals for all Company employees below the vice president level, a 50% achievement level to the performance goals for all Company employees at the vice president level and above, other than Ms. Johnson, and a 38.27% achievement level to the performance goals for Ms. Johnson. For the 2024 performance period, our named executive officers earned the performance-based incentive compensation reported in the "non-equity incentive plan compensation" column of the Summary Compensation Table, above for fiscal year 2024.

#### Competitive Assessment of Compensation
As discussed in further detail below, in establishing the various components of our executive officer compensation program, the Compensation Committee considers annually, among other factors, including those discussed above under “Compensation Determination Process,” the target total cash compensation (consisting of both base salary and target incentive compensation amounts) and target total equity compensation of our executive officers against market data. The Compensation Committee primarily does so to ensure that our executive officer compensation program as a whole is positioned competitively to attract and retain qualified executive officers and that the total compensation opportunity for our executive officers is aligned with our corporate objectives and strategic needs. The components of the market data are based on the availability of