The Esopus Foundation Ltd
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 753115715
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2020–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2019, Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- Brooklyn, NY, USA
- Phone
- 2124730919
- Rating
- 86
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Arts, Cultural Organizations - Multipurpose
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $18,590
- Expenses
- $47,509
- Assets
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Tod Lippy (President)
People named in this filing
- Tod Lippy (President)
- Monroe Denton (Secretary)
- John Melick (Director)
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 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The Organization's mission is to narrow the gap between creative expression and public enlightenment and to eliminate the distortion that profit-oriented media interposes between the two.
What it reported doing in 2025
In the winter of 2025, the Esopus Foundation Ltd. initiated the process of legal dissolution of the Esopus Foundation, which was completed on October 25. In accordance with this process, the Foundation ceased operations at the beginning of the year.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent revenue detail to tell how this nonprofit funds its work.
- 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. Expenses are high relative to revenue and program spending has declined or grown slowly.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 92
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 4
- Growth: 0
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 77.6%; rating input score 78
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -155.6%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0; rating input score 3; 3rd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
- Officer compensation ratio: 18.9%; rating input score 8; 8th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: -22.8% per year; rating input score 0; 17th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -11.1% per year; rating input score 0; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -12.4% per year; rating input score 0; 15th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 77.6% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $37K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 5 people listed
- Consistency: 5 of 5 current checks pass
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules
- Filing history: 6 filing years from 2020 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 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.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 5/100.
- High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 3/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 8/100.