Blue River Watershed Association
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 431834342
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2010–2022
- Forms available
- Form 990 2017, Form 990-EZ 2022
- Location
- Kansas City, MO, USA
- Phone
- 8164625199
- Rating
- 88
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Water Resource, Wetlands Conservation and Management
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $25,631
- Expenses
- $65,187
- Assets
- $8,964
- Liabilities
- $1,982
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2022. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
4 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Lynn Youngblood (Executive Director)
- Micheal Strohschein (President)
- Hannah McSpadden (Vice President)
People named in this filing
- Lynn Youngblood (Executive Director)
- Micheal Strohschein (President)
- Hannah McSpadden (Vice 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-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2022. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
To restore and protect watersheds through environmental education, community outreach, partnerships, and collaboration.
What it reported doing in 2022
Blue River Watershed Association's (BRWA) Board of Directors or staff do not believe in chasing money, reworking or writing new programs that may be misaligned with mission simply to attain funding. In other words chasing dollars and losing sight of the mission. The Blue River Watershed Association continues to offer quality, hands-on E-STEM (Environmental, Science, Engineering, Technology, and Math) programs to schools and communities. In 2022, BRWA's education staff made over a 1,500 student, teacher, and community impacts with water quality environmental programs throughout the five-county Kansas City Metropolitan Area. BRWA continued working on its prestigious EPA Environmental Education grant, KIDS in Streams, Kids Investigate, Discover, and Study in StreamsSM with its banner program, T.R.U.E. BlueSM (Teaching Rivers in an Urban EnvironmentSM). In this four-lesson, four-day (one hour each day) curriculum, BRWA teacher certified educators teach all four lessons. Lesson One is an introduction to watersheds, stormwater runoff, point and nonpoint pollution, and negative human impacts on local waterways. Students learn proper safety and use protocols with the professional-level HACH water quality test kits in Lesson Two. Lesson Three is a trip to the closest river or stream where students conduct a battery of tests including turbidity, air & water temperatures, pH and conductivity, and nitrates and phosphates, dissolved oxygen, fecal coliform bacteria, and 5-Day BOD are also collected. Back in the classroom for Lesson Four, BRWA educators lead students with the raw data collected at the river using graphs, charts, and calculators determine the Water Quality Index Number for that river, on that time and day. Most students report that T.R.U.E. BlueSM is a life-changing experience, as many students have never been to a river, or participated in such hands-on Science. Additionally, Eco-Kids ClubSM funded by General Motors continued, but was brought back to Douglass Elementary School where it all began nearly 10 years prior. In this E-STEM afterschool program students in 3rd - 5th Grades are taught the elements of watersheds, surface and chemical pollution, water tension, and many more properties of water quality with the assistance of General Motors mentor volunteers.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 100% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 95% 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
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Expenses are high relative to revenue and program spending has declined or grown slowly.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 94
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 8
- Growth: 20
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 84.9%; rating input score 85
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -154.3%; rating input score 6; 6th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.14; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.22; rating input score 14; 14th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 66%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: -5.1% per year; rating input score 0; 39th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -4.4% per year; rating input score 0; 40th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 3.2% per year; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 84.9% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $55K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 4 people listed
- Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 10 filing years from 2010 to 2022
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- 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.
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 — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 6/100.
- High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 12/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 1/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 14/100.
- High — Grant Readiness: Automatic revocation: this organization had its federal tax-exempt status automatically revoked.