Mystic Museum of Art Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 066000563
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2012–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-T 2022
- Location
- Mystic, CT, USA
- Phone
- 8605367601
- Rating
- 79
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Art Museums
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,298,117
- Expenses
- $1,295,469
- Assets
- $5,760,485
- Liabilities
- $52,123
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
15 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- MICHELE KIRK (Vice President)
- BRECK PERKINS (President)
Highest reported compensation
- SUSAN FISHER (Executive Dir.): $99,873 total reported compensation
- LINDA THACHER VISSCHER (Interim Dir.): $76,250 total reported compensation
- ALANA H RYDER (Executive Dir.): $17,788 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The Mystic Museum of Art is an educational non-profit, non-stock corporation. Its mission is to inspire creativity and critical dialogue by engaging the regional community in understanding, appreciation, and practice of visual art.
What it reported doing in 2025
Education/Outreach: Provide broad based studio arts programming to the community at large. Also expand our reach with our studio arts programming through offsite literacy-based art education and exposure to the student population of New London County.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 77% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% 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
SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and a large share of available resources goes toward mission work. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 64
- Transparency & Controls: 86
- Accountability: 100
- Sustainability: 49
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 71.9%; rating input score 72
- Program expense ratio: 72.1%; rating input score 72
- Fundraising efficiency: $1.02 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 4; 4th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 92.9%; rating input score 93; 22nd 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; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 8 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 0.2%; rating input score 31; 31st percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 4.45; rating input score 82; 82nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.01; rating input score 61; 61st percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 15%; rating input score 25; 25th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 2.3% per year; rating input score 100; 24th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 3% per year; rating input score 100; 25th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 3.7% per year; rating input score 100; 30th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 71.9% of revenue deployed · 72.1% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 12 of 12 board members independent · 8 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $934K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $100K · 15 people listed
- Consistency: 27 of 28 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 13 filing years from 2012 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 3 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.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 31/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 25/100.