Blackstone Watershed Collaborative Inc

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
993623451
IRS 990 coverage
2025–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2024
Location
Manchaug, MA, USA
Phone
4438630930
Rating
79
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Natural Resources Conservation and Protection

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$699,696
Expenses
$512,667
Assets
$246,751
Liabilities
$70,823

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

7 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • KATE MCPHERSON (PRESIDENT)
  • STEFANIE COVINO (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)

People named in this filing

  • BRUCE CURLISS (DIRECTOR)
  • MICHAEL GEREL (DIRECTOR)
  • KATE MCPHERSON (PRESIDENT)

Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

To improve the social and ecological resilience of the blackstone watershed through community and organizational capacity building and providing technical assistance by hosting meetings, events, and trainings and by offering resources and assisting with grants, on related topics

What it reported doing in 2025

Technical assistance & planning this program provides technical support to municipalities, partners, and agencies to advance watershed restoration and resilience projects. Work includes hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, feasibility analysis, and project development. Accomplishments: responded to 80 technical assistance requests assessed 285 culverts and supported naacc trainings (10 lead observers certified, 1 trainer) initiated watershed-scale hydrologic and hydraulic (h&h) analysis advanced priority restoration projects toward implementation

Operating model

Revenue model
Grant-funded. 99% of the money available for current operations came from government grants.
Distribution model
Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 70% for direct work, and 30% for grants.

The verdict

SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 82
  • Transparency & Controls: 85
  • Accountability: 76
  • Sustainability: 56
  • Growth: 60

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 70.9%; rating input score 71
  • Program expense ratio: 96.8%; rating input score 97
  • Fundraising efficiency: $771.44 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 96; 96th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 90.9%; rating input score 91; 10th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: 93.6%; rating input score 94; 44th percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Limited
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 3 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 43
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Fail
    • Document-retention policy: Fail
    • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • 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: 26.7%; rating input score 79; 79th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.48; rating input score 24; 24th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.29; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 78; 78th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: Limited
  • Revenue growth: 170.9% per year; rating input score 100; 100th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 167.5% per year; rating input score 100; 100th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 70.9% of revenue deployed · 96.8% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 6 of 6 board members independent · 3 of 7 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $496K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 7 people listed
  • Consistency: 26 of 27 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes grants
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 8 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.

  • Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 6 not reported.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 24/100.
  • Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 20/100.