Kieve Wavus Education Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 237352599
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2010–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Nobleboro, ME, USA
- Phone
- 2075635172
- Rating
- 79
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Human Services N.E.C.
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $13,620,719
- Expenses
- $13,219,226
- Assets
- $47,386,510
- Liabilities
- $4,413,563
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
25 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Sam Kennedy (President & CEO)
- Sam Kaplan (Executive Director & COO)
Highest reported compensation
- Henry Kennedy (Exe. Director Emeritus (end 1/24)): $1,229,696 total reported compensation
- Charles Richardson Jr (Sen. Advisor to Exec. Dir.(end 1/24)): $1,215,898 total reported compensation
- Sam Kennedy (President & CEO): $427,915 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Kieve Wavus Education is guided by its mission: to empower people to contribute positively to society by promoting the values of kindness, respect for others, and environmental stewardship through year-round experiential programs, camps for youth and adults, and guidance through experiential programs led by inspirational role models.
What it reported doing in 2024
The Leadership School (TLS) is a teacher education program that cultivates career educators who learn by providing experiential outdoor education programs to thousands of Maine students each year. TLS is a Maine Department of Education (DOE) non-traditional, limited-purpose private school (grades 1-12), guided by our environmental stewardship and experiential approach to social-emotional learning (EASEL) curricula. At TLS, our teaching fellows spend their fall and spring terms leading overnight Outdoor School programs for Maine students and teachers on our Kieve campus, and their winter terms in residency at local, Midcoast Maine public schools. (Leadership School & KWE Events continued) Through a partnership with the University of Southern Maine, a TLS Fellow can earn their professional DOE teaching certification with all coursework and student teaching credit hours paid for by KWE. In 2024, TLS served approximately 6,353 students across 77 programs on campus and at our local schools.KWE Events incorporates the wide range of programs led across our campuses and in our community, above and beyond TLS, Kieve, and Wavus. Each year, KWE hosts dozens of events - from wellness retreats for humanitarian and mission-based groups ranging from veterans to families fighting cancer, to board meetings, team-building programs, and more. Our campuses feature cozy lakeside cottages, as well as the Kennedy Learning Center, a 16-bedroom event center at our Kieve campus, where alumni and people aligned with our mission can come together to learn, grow, and benefit from this transformational place. This work also incorporates the Lincoln County Food Initiative, where, during the 20 weeks of winter in Maine, members of our operations team combine their efforts to serve our neighbors in need. This program evolved from a community-wide initiative at the peak of the COVID pandemic. It leverages local partnerships and KWE's industrial kitchens and talented full-time cooks to procure local ingredients and produce more than 6,000 delicious, pre-made meals to our five local pantries, helping sustain our neighbors facing food insecurity during the hardest time of the year.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 81% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 85% 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 73
- Transparency & Controls: 81
- Accountability: 91
- Sustainability: 54
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 81.1%; rating input score 81
- Program expense ratio: 83.2%; rating input score 83
- Fundraising efficiency: $1.54 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 4; 4th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 94.7%; rating input score 95; 24th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Compensation committee: Pass
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Pass
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Missing
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 99.1%; rating input score 99; 32nd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 7 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 78
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 2.9%; rating input score 46; 46th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.58; rating input score 79; 79th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.09; rating input score 75; 75th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 25%; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 3.3% per year; rating input score 100; 29th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 3.2% per year; rating input score 100; 27th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 4.3% per year; rating input score 100; 31st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 81.1% of revenue deployed · 83.2% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 14 of 14 board members independent · 7 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $11M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $1.2M · 25 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Highest-paid contractors: 1 contractor listed · $122K reported
- Consistency: 37 of 38 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 9 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 14 filing years from 2010 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 10 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.
- 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.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 4/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 9 not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 46/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 2/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.