Prairie Rivers Network
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 376085905
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2014–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Champaign, IL, USA
- Phone
- 2173442371
- Rating
- 79
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $2,785,687
- Expenses
- $1,784,581
- Assets
- $6,993,321
- Liabilities
- $359,532
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
10 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- JON MCNUSSEN (PRESIDENT)
- MARGARET BRUNS (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)
Highest reported compensation
- MARGARET BRUNS (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $121,082 total reported compensation
- VICKIE NUDELMAN (DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS AND FINANCE): $104,992 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
At prairie rivers network, we protect water, heal land, and inspire change. Using the creative power of science, law, and collective action, we protect and restore our rivers, return healthy soils and diverse wildlife to our lands, and transform how we care for the earth and for each other.
What it reported doing in 2025
At prairie rivers network, we protect water, heal land, and inspire change. Protect water - water is life-connecting, sustaining, and inspiring us all. At prairie rivers network we protect water from ravages of pollution and restore the beauty and power of naturally flowing rivers. We hold polluters accountable, advance policies to allow river ecosystems to thrive, and promote practices that keep our waters clean.heal land - land and water form a system on which the entire community of life depends; to care for land is to care for water. Too often, human activity degrades land and water and imperils this community. At prairie rivers network, we advance practices and policies that return health to our soils and increase biodiversity. We work with people to restore the lands along and between our rivers, repair the earth that provides our food, and ensure that animals have the habitat needed to thrive. Inspire change - prairie rivers network is part of an interconnected whole. Our community includes all parts of the earth: soil, water, people, plants, and animals. At prairie rivers network, we elevate and uphold the cultural values and understandings needed for all life to flourish. We use the images and voices of people to tell compelling stories of resistance and renewal. We educate and empower people to act. And we lead collective efforts to create new ways of restoring our rivers, healing our lands, and caring for our neighbors.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 98% 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and a large share of total spending goes to programs. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 60
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 95
- Sustainability: 73
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 51.6%; rating input score 52
- Program expense ratio: 78.8%; rating input score 79
- Fundraising efficiency: $11.72 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 41; 41st percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd 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; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 8 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 89
- 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: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 35.9%; rating input score 85; 85th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.92; rating input score 76; 76th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.05; rating input score 60; 60th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 12.7%; rating input score 27; 27th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 8.2% per year; rating input score 100; 53rd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 5.4% per year; rating input score 100; 41st percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 13.4% per year; rating input score 100; 70th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 51.6% of revenue deployed · 78.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 8 of 8 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $1.4M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $121K · 10 people listed
- Consistency: 34 of 34 current checks pass
- Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 12 filing years from 2014 to 2025
- 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.
- 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.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 52/100.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 41/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 27/100.