Berklee

Overview

Mission

Berklee provides the highest-quality educational experience in music, dance, and theater to prepare students to fully realize their creative and career potential, and to promote the power of the arts to better our world. Unified Vision Berklee is building the future of arts education—borderless in its availability and influence, pioneering in its embrace of innovation, and committed to empowering artists and creative leaders for lives of inspiration and impact. Berklee has grown to include a diverse set of learning environments, each contributing uniquely to our mission and vision. These varied settings foster innovation, creativity, and a comprehensive educational experience, ensuring our students are well-prepared for the evolving demands of the music and arts industries.

Operating model

Revenue model

Earned-program. 94% 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 67% for direct work, and 33% for grants.

• Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.

The verdict

STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.

Rating breakdown

• Financial Efficiency: 76
• Transparency & Controls: 81
• Accountability: 98
• Sustainability: 43
• Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Details

• What they do: 4 operating locations identified
• Where the money goes: 81.4% of revenue deployed · 81.6% of spending went to programs
• Governance: 32 of 33 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
• Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $379.3M in reported program spending
• Leadership: top reported pay $1.3M · 52 people listed · 5 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
• Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $24.3M reported
• Consistency: 43 of 43 current checks pass
• Schedules: 12 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, grants, executive pay, and related organizations
• Filing history: 16 filing years from 2009 to 2024
• Contacts: How to reach this organization
• Money network: 11 filed money-flow records
• Related organizations: 3 filed related-organization links
• 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.

Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.

• High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight scored 0/100.
• Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 33/100.
• High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 22/100.
• Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 45/100.
• High — Grant Readiness: Federal audit findings: this organization reported findings in its latest federal Single Audit.