Friends of Arrow Street Arts Inc

What it reported doing in 2024

Friends of arrow street arts, inc. ("friends") has completed its start-up phase and is now fully operational. Friends curates and hosts a full calendar of multi-disciplinary artistic work to engage, challenge, and reimagine performing arts as a community asset and rents its space to aspiring and accomplished performing artists and artistic companies (often on a discounted basis) to present their works to the community. The venue encompasses the first floor of an existing four-story, 40,000 sf mixed-use building that opened in 2005. With renovations underway and planned by charles rose architects, friends' 11,500 sf performance facility will be revitalized with extensive production investments in two flexible performance spaces along with other upgrades to enhance the audience and artist experience alike. A 4,500 sf black box theater will offer various seating configurations for up to approximately 300 audience members; and a new 1,100 sf street-front studio expands the overall arts footprint by about 10 percent. The studio space is expected to accommodate up to 100 people. Both spaces will support rehearsals, performances, and special events across a range of artistic genres, including theater, spoken word/ readings, dance, music, and film. Highlights of the renovations include:(i) performance/rehearsal spaces: flexibility to accommodate multiple staging configurations for use in a variety of capacities for theater, dance, music and more; sprung floors for dance; comprehensive, updated lighting, sound, projection, and video production capacities. (ii) audience experience enhancements: improved audience seating with options to "right-size" audience seating size; updated restroom designs with private, all-gender water closets; centralized ticketing services; expanded food & beverage service. (iii) backstage/production support: enhanced dressing room capacities with additional overflow capacities when needed; artists' green rooms; dedicated wardrobe/costume center with laundry. Since the project was announced publicly in january 2023, friends has engaged with over 100 artists and producing organizations about the potential use of the venue.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
• Program expense ratio: 95.2%; rating input score 95
• Fundraising efficiency: $151.98 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 90; 90th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: Limited
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• 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: Fail
  • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • 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: -13.7%; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 4.75; rating input score 83; 83rd percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.24; rating input score 40; 40th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 1%; rating input score 80; 80th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 74.6% per year; rating input score 100; 98th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 17.2% per year; rating input score 100; 85th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 24.9% per year; rating input score 100; 89th percentile among comparable filings