Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA)
Legal name: Alliance for Global Water Adaptation Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 833732786
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2019–2025
- Official website data refreshed
- Oct 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Corvallis, OR, USA
- Phone
- 7036231333
- Rating
- 72
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Alliance/Advocacy
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,479,062
- Expenses
- $1,550,125
- Assets
- $240,399
- Liabilities
- $312,726
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
13 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- JOHN MATTHEWS (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
Highest reported compensation
- JOHN MATTHEWS (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $205,000 total reported compensation
- ALEX MAURONER (CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER): $105,000 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
AGWA is an international NGO working across technical and policy programs to mainstream resilient water resources management, focusing on the connections between water resources, ecosystems, and economies.
What it reported doing in 2025
Agwa continues to develop, promote, and build capacity around technical approaches to resilient water management. We work directly with practitioners, decisionmakers, planners, and water managers to mainstream best practices for addressing risk and uncertainty as well as the means to institutionalize and finance these types of approaches. Through various projects and initiatives - nearly always in collaboration with agwa partners - we work to provide guidance on development finance, resilient infrastructure, vulnerability assesment methodologies, nature-based solutions, disaster risk reduction, urban resilience, and cross-sectorial (e.g. Food-water-energy) challenges. Over the years, agwa has developed and published new methodologies for incorporating and addressing uncertainty in water resources operations, design, and planning. To ensure these approaches are mainstreamed, agwa works to build understanding with relevant technical and policy audiences.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Grant-funded. 86% of the money available for current operations came from government grants.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and most voting board members are independent. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and the filing does not identify recipients for some grant dollars.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 87
- Transparency & Controls: 47
- Accountability: 87
- Sustainability: 14
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 90.2%; rating input score 90
- Program expense ratio: 86.1%; rating input score 86
- Fundraising efficiency: $57.5 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Missing
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Scored; rating input score 0
- Grant itemization coverage: Scored; rating input score 0
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 84.6%; rating input score 85; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 8 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 89
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -4.8%; rating input score 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.16; rating input score 8; 8th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 1.3; rating input score 3; 3rd percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 20%; rating input score 16; 16th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 26.3% per year; rating input score 100; 86th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 23.3% per year; rating input score 100; 86th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 6.1% per year; rating input score 100; 40th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 11 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 7 operating locations identified
- Where the money goes: 90.2% of revenue deployed · 86.1% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 11 of 13 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $1.3M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $205K · 13 people listed · 1 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 28 of 28 current checks pass
- Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, and executive pay
- Filing history: 6 filing years from 2019 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight scored 0/100.
- High — Transparency & Controls: Grant itemization coverage scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 19/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 8/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 3/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 16/100.