New Utility Inc

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
823997858
IRS 990-EZ coverage
2018–2024
Forms available
Form 990-EZ 2024
Location
New York, NY, USA
Phone
4084970076
Rating
92
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Arts, Culture, and Humanities N.E.C.

Reported finances

Revenue
$172,213
Expenses
$157,691
Assets
$40,928
Liabilities
$446

Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

3 people listed

People named in this filing

  • Abby Zbikowski (Artistic Director)
  • Fiona Lundie (Company Manager)
  • Rashana Smith (Member of Board of Directors)

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 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

The New Utility Inc. provides cultural dance performances and workshops to engage and inspire the public with hybrid, conceptual movement that challenges perceived limitations and uncovers possibility in the body. The New Utility brings together its choreographer Abby Zbikowski and a diverse set of performers from a vast range of training backgrounds to challenge the orthodoxy of traditional concert dance aesthetics, which are historically sexist, classist, and racist. From this diversity, the New Utility has created a new movement lexicon which triangulates dancing/moving bodies across multiple cultural value systems simultaneously, thus welcoming equally audience members from a range of cultural backgrounds and understandings of dance and movement. By performing, teaching workshops, and engaging in public discussions in a range of venues across multiple communities, the New Utility seeks to enrich the cultural experience of the public through the medium of live dance performance.

What it reported doing in 2024

Creation and Development of Dance Work. Abby Zbikowski and a diverse set of performers from a range of personal and movement backgrounds create layered, nuanced works of live dance performance that grapple with multiple cultural and aesthetic value systems. Utilizing fatigue, struggle, strength of will, and reliance on each other for support, the performers persevere in the brutal and beautiful parameters of the work, as a means of representing the complex dynamics of the world in which we live. By utilizing and combining different dance forms, the New Utility showcases how diversity and inclusivity can create beautiful hybrid movement forms that are greater than any one individual style or type of work. The Irish Modern Dance Theatre commissioned Abby Zbikowski through The New Utility, Inc to create a 30 min work for five dancers in Dublin, Ireland to be premiered at the Dublin Fringe Festival 2024. The commission involved three trips to Dublin in 2024: classes and auditions in March, two weeks of creation in June, two weeks of creation in August, followed immediately by two weeks of performances in Dublin and Cork in September. Three New Utility dancers and the dramaturg assisted throughout the rigorous process. The final work "The Future is on the Way" received two 5 star reviews and was nominated for best ensemble in the Dublin Fringe Festival. Utah Valley University contracted The New Utility, Inc. to create a work for their students replicating the process the company uses to create work. Rehearsal Director and Dancer Fiona Lundie and Dancer Benjamin Roach represented the company at this commission residency. They worked with students 4-6 hours per day, 6 days per week to teach, create, and compose the 15 minute work "Ground the chaos." (Due to its timing in the year, and the slowness of the University payment system, the payment for this program came through in January of 2025) Abby held a two week residency at the Wexner Center for the Arts in June with seven dancers to research and create new work to be premiered at the American Dance Festival. In August and December, she worked with three dancers, totaling 100 hours of studio creation for the new work in 2024. Abby Zbikowski donated her Guggenheim Award funds to the company to support the new work, including this residency.

Operating model

Revenue model
Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
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

STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown and expenses are high relative to revenue.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 91
  • Transparency & Controls: 100
  • Sustainability: 40
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 87.9%; rating input score 88
  • Program expense ratio: 96%; rating input score 96

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 8.4%; rating input score 55; 55th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.26; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.01; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 8.2%; rating input score 22; 22nd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 10.8% per year; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 7.3% per year; rating input score 100; 58th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 11.7% per year; rating input score 100; 66th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 87.9% of revenue deployed · 96% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: Filed governance answers
  • Accomplishments: 4 filed program accomplishments · $151K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 3 people listed
  • Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 3 filed schedules
  • Filing history: 6 filing years from 2018 to 2024
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
  • Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
  • 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.

  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 23/100.
  • Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 55/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 22/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 42/100.