American Water Resources Association
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 376076418
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2011–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-T 2023
- Location
- Chicago, IL, USA
- Phone
- 5402644022
- Rating
- 74
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Professional Societies, Associations
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $735,326
- Expenses
- $1,032,582
- Assets
- $602,785
- Liabilities
- $249,999
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
14 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- RABIA AHMED (PRESIDENT)
- JUNI ALAM (PRESIDENT-ELECT)
- ZHENXING JASON ZHANG (PAST PRESIDENT)
- ARIEL WISE (INTERIM CEO)
Highest reported compensation
- ARIEL WISE (INTERIM CEO): $80,000 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Provide its members and the general public with activities, programs and services that facilitate the advancement of water resources research, planning, development, management and education.
What it reported doing in 2024
Impact is a bi-monthly collection of themed articles, by guest editors of the association. The magazine may be purchased individually or through subscription.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 72% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- 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 the filed numbers largely add up. A relatively small share of total spending goes to programs and fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 67
- Transparency & Controls: 83
- Accountability: 90
- Sustainability: 17
- Growth: 60
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 78.9%; rating input score 79
- Program expense ratio: 55.9%; rating input score 56
- Fundraising efficiency: $12.23 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 44; 44th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 92.3%; rating input score 92; 16th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- Major donor itemization: Limited
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 6 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 75
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -40.4%; rating input score 4; 4th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.58; rating input score 27; 27th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.41; rating input score 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 7.7%; rating input score 44; 44th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 0.4% per year; rating input score 100; 19th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -2.1% per year; rating input score 0; 9th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 5.3% per year; rating input score 100; 40th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 78.9% of revenue deployed · 55.9% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 13 of 13 board members independent · 6 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $578K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $80K · 14 people listed
- Consistency: 29 of 30 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 12 filing years from 2011 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
- 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.
- Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 56/100.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 44/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 4/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 27/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 19/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 44/100.