Louisville Independent Business Alliance
Legal name: Louisville Independent Business Alliance Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 205025267
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2013–2025
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2011
- Location
- Louisville, KY, US
- Phone
- 502.473.4687
- Rating
- 69
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Chambers of Commerce & Business Leagues
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $275,807
- Expenses
- $261,283
- Assets
- $37,761
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
6 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- JENNIFER RUBENSTEIN (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
- LAUREN HENDRICKS (President)
- CYNTHIA BROWN (Vice President)
Highest reported compensation
- JENNIFER RUBENSTEIN (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $57,720 total reported compensation
- LESLIE SPANYER: $43,880 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
To cultivate the unique community character of the Metro Louisville area by promoting locally-owned, independent businesses and to educate citizens on the value of purchasing locally.
The Louisville Independent Business Alliance (LIBA) is a nonprofit membership organization that promotes and supports locally owned, independent businesses in the Louisville, Kentucky area. Through its iconic "Keep Louisville Weird" campaign, LIBA works to strengthen the local economy by encouraging residents and visitors to shop at independent retailers, restaurants, and service providers. The organization operates neighborhood initiatives such as LIBA South and LIBA West, hosts events like Small Business Saturday and the hoLOUdays silent auction, and provides member benefits including business profiles and marketing support. LIBA also runs a foundation and publishes a newsletter to further its mission of building a vibrant, self-reliant local business community.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
- Distribution model
- Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent spending detail to tell whether the nonprofit works directly or through others.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - A large share of total spending goes to programs and the filed numbers largely add up. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 60
- Transparency & Controls: 79
- Accountability: 84
- Sustainability: 35
- Growth: 60
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 57%; rating input score 57
- Program expense ratio: 60.1%; rating input score 60
- Fundraising efficiency: $61.76 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 87.5%; rating input score 88; 4th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- Major donor itemization: Limited
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 5 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 62
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Fail
- 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: 5.3%; rating input score 48; 48th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.14; rating input score 9; 9th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 38.9%; rating input score 6; 6th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: -4.6% per year; rating input score 0; 17th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 1.9% per year; rating input score 100; 29th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 11% per year; rating input score 100; 66th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 10 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 1 operating location identified
- Where the money goes: 57% of revenue deployed · 60.1% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 13 of 13 board members independent · 5 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment
- Leadership: top reported pay $58K · 6 people listed
- Consistency: 13 of 14 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 1 filed schedules
- Filing history: 13 filing years from 2013 to 2025
- 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.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 57/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 7 not reported.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Functional expense sum did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 9/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 48/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 6/100.