Rivers Institute
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 842899785
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2022–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2020
- Location
- New Orleans, LA, USA
- Phone
- 9178621692
- Rating
- 71
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Visual Arts Organizations
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,105,464
- Expenses
- $836,953
- Assets
- $885,907
- Liabilities
- $164,056
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
10 people listed
People named in this filing
- ADAM HAWF (CHAIRPERSON)
- JULIA VLOCK (TREASURER)
- AYESHA WILLIAMS (SECRETARY)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Rivers institute for contemporary art & thought commits to migrational imaginations. Based in new orleans, a place predicated upon and consigned to futures of displacement, our program is rooted in both the precarity and joy of landscape and community. We welcome artists from around the world into extended fellowship and project development. And through our carefully cultivated network of partners, we realize and share books, exhibitions, performances and explore new forms of distribution with communitites globally. Through multi-year commitments with rigorous and adventurous artists, we support the development of innovative and multi-platform works and see to their wide and deep circulation.
What it reported doing in 2025
In 2025, rivers continued to realize original exhibitions, artist publications, public programs, and explore new forms of global distribution, with a network of partners and collaborators. Rivers' touring solo retrospective for Louisiana-born artist, tina girouard, concluded with a final presentation in mexico city and the release of the eponymous publication, "tina girouard: sign-in." copublished by rivers and dancing foxes press, this is the first comprehensive monograph on the late artist's interdisciplinary oeuvre. Through 2025, rivers continued to explore the possibilities of archival practices through an unfolding study of works by the late, prolific artist bettina grossman. Over the course of the year, rivers' team researched, organized, and opened the experimental exhibition, original order order original: the art & archives of bettina," accompanied by the development and launch of a comprehensive online archival database (oooo.riversinstitute.org) and series of public programspresented in collaboration with ruth foundation for the arts in milwaukee. In 2025, development and planning continued for rivers forthcoming print publication and exhibition with artist alia farid, in partnership with siglio press and cam-houston. Other notable collaborations include "marronage: meaning wild," a 4-hour radio broadcast co-presented with montez press radio, featuring an audio index drawn from rivers three-day convening of artists and activists sharing knowledge of the places and people in the marshlands of Louisiana and other mirroring environments across the globe. Rivers also partnered with triple canopy to launch "living equipment" led by tonal geologist ryan c. Clarke. This eight-part series in New York and new orleans was a sequence of conversations, listening sessions, and performances devoted to black electronic music, with one session joining clarke with will rawls, a choreographer, dancer, and writer and rivers artist-in-residence.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 99% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 96% 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 most voting board members are independent. 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: 54
- Transparency & Controls: 88
- Accountability: 76
- Sustainability: 62
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 50.2%; rating input score 50
- Program expense ratio: 66.3%; rating input score 66
- Fundraising efficiency: $11.36 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 39; 39th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 91.7%; rating input score 92; 15th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 93%; rating input score 93; 44th percentile among comparable filings
- 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 7 controls in place; rating input score 43
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- 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: 24.3%; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.06; rating input score 45; 45th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.19; rating input score 26; 26th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 78; 78th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 9.4% per year; rating input score 100; 55th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 27.2% per year; rating input score 100; 89th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 36.6% per year; rating input score 100; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 50.2% of revenue deployed · 66.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 10 of 10 board members independent · 3 of 7 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $555K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 10 people listed
- Consistency: 25 of 26 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2022 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 2 filed related-organization links
- 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 50/100.
- Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 6 not reported.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 39/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 45/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 26/100.