Williams College
Overview
Mission
See schedule o.
What it reported doing in 2024
Williams is an independent liberal arts college for approximately 2,100 full-time undergraduate and 50 graduate students who come from all of the 50 states and countries from around the world. The williams curriculum offers study in the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences and combines a broad education with knowledge of one field in depth. The college offers the bachelor of arts degree at the undergraduate level. In addition, the college offers master of arts programs in policy economics and history of art.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 62% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 77% for direct work, and 23% for grants.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 042104847
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2009–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-T 2024
- Headquarters
- Williamstown, MA, USA
- Rating
- 88
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Universities
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and the filing reports few safeguards for setting executive pay.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 89
- Transparency & Controls: 80
- Accountability: 98
- Sustainability: 83
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 88.8%; rating input score 89
- Fundraising efficiency: $8.94 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 38; 38th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 71st percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Foreign activity oversight: 3 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 38
- Grant itemization coverage: 99.9%; rating input score 100; 47th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Yes; rating input score 100
- Public monitoring controls: Limited
- Public policy transparency: Limited
- Public financial transparency: Limited
- Impact reporting controls: Limited
- Public relationship transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 96%; rating input score 96; 48th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Public governance controls: Limited
- Zakat policy transparency: Limited
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 25%; rating input score 90; 90th percentile among comparable filings
- Operating reserve ratio: 13.97; rating input score 93; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.2; rating input score 68; 68th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 2.6%; rating input score 45; 45th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 4.1% per year; rating input score 100; 32nd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 4.8% per year; rating input score 100; 41st percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 6.3% per year; rating input score 100; 47th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 88.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 24 of 25 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $352.2M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $1.6M · 45 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 51 of 51 current checks pass
- Schedules: 13 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, grants, executive pay, and related organizations
- Filing history: 16 annual filings from 2009 to 2024
- Money network: 43 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 23 filed related-organization links