NM Voters First
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 992679744
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2024–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Albuquerque, NM, USA
- Phone
- 5056972833
- Rating
- 85
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Citizen Participation
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $307,524
- Expenses
- $304,074
- Assets
- $54,178
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
9 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Sila Avcil (Executive Director)
- Melissa Ontiveros (President)
- Lilly Irvin-Vitel (Vice President)
Highest reported compensation
- Sila Avcil (Executive Director): $74,000 total reported compensation
- Perry Radford (Deputy Director): $18,000 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
New Mexico Voters Firsts mission is to support candidates that believe in empowering and enhancing democracy and encouraging legislators to support fair and equitable elections that expand peoples political voice.
What it reported doing in 2025
1. Our primary activity is lobbying. We advocated in preparation for and during the New Mexico legislative session for the passage of semi-open primaries, and other good government reforms. We held one-on-one meetings with legislators before and during the legislative session, mobilized volunteers to testify in favor or our bills, created a strong coalition of supporting organizations to enhance our efforts, and conducted additional activities related to this as needed. This activity was conducted in the State of New Mexico mainly by the Executive Director and our contracted lobbyist. Fifty percent of our time is allocated to this activity. This activity is funded by grants and donations. Lobbying furthers our mission by ensuring that accurate information is being given to elected officials regarding our reforms. Lobbying also ensures that we build and maintain good relationships with elected officials so they are more likely to listen to our and our supporters concerns around pro-democracy reforms and will introduce bills that are in the best interest of New Mexicans.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 100% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- 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. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 91
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 74
- Sustainability: 31
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 93.1%; rating input score 93
- Program expense ratio: 94.2%; rating input score 94
- Fundraising efficiency: $43.89 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 72; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th 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: 3 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 38
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Fail
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- 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: 1.1%; rating input score 38; 38th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.18; rating input score 11; 11th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 30.3%; rating input score 11; 11th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 64.5% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 36.3% per year; rating input score 100; 94th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 6.6% per year; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 93.1% of revenue deployed · 94.2% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 5 board members independent · 3 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $286K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $74K · 9 people listed
- Consistency: 20 of 20 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 2 filing years from 2024 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 1 filed related-organization link
- 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.
- Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 7 not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 38/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 11/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 11/100.