The Hydrous

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
465112972
IRS 990-EZ coverage
2025–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-PF 2023
Location
San Francisco, CA, USA
Phone
4155218272
Rating
68
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Community Improvement, Capacity Building N.E.C.

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$46,526
Expenses
$119,072
Assets
$62,412
Liabilities
$0

Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

6 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • DR ERIKA WOOLSEY PETERSON (CEO)

People named in this filing

  • DR KRISTINA WOOLSEY (BOARD CHAIR)
  • ANDREA CONTRERAS (TREASURER)
  • WESLEY DELLA VOLLA (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-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

The hydrous is an education-centered nonprofit organization dedicated to translating scientific discovery in our ocean into public understanding. Our mission is to create "open access oceans" so that all people may explore, understand, and engage with beautiful and threatened marine invironments.

What it reported doing in 2025

Research the hydrous conducts research on the effectiveness of immersive virtual reality for marine education with research partners like the stanford university virtual human interaction lab, the university of Oregon, and the university of gothenburg and funders like the national science foundation, national geographic, and meta.accomplishments: keith et al. (2026) enhancing motivation to learn marine ecology and increase ocean literacy through virtual reality in higher education. Ecosphere 17:3. Https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70565 . Fauville, g., pimentel, d., & woolsey, e. (2025). Ocean xr: a deep dive into extended reality for marine education and ocean literacy. Ocean and society, 2, article 10714. Https://doi.org/10.17645/oas.10714. Hamilton, j.f., kelley, b.z., monismith, s.g., kose, j.r. (2025) on the use of simplified geometries to represent turbulent flow over coral reefs. Journal of fluid mechanics: 1004, a11. Mcgivney, e., queiroz a.c.m., miller, m.r., sunny liu, beams, b., han, e., woolsey, e.s., frazier, k., peterson, x., hancock, j., bailenson, j. (2024) complexity of agency in vr learning environments: exploring association with interactivity, learning outcomes, and affect. Immersive learning research network 2024 proceedings.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 65% 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

SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up. A relatively small share of total spending goes to programs and revenue has declined or grown slowly.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 53
  • Transparency & Controls: 100
  • Sustainability: 20
  • Growth: 0

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 69.4%; rating input score 69
  • Program expense ratio: 27.1%; rating input score 27

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: -155.9%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.52; rating input score 32; 32nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 45.4%; rating input score 4; 4th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: Limited
  • Revenue growth: -134.6% per year; rating input score 0; 1st percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: -73.5% per year; rating input score 0; 2nd percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 69.4% of revenue deployed · 27.1% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: Filed governance answers
  • Accomplishments: 3 filed program accomplishments · $32K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 6 people listed
  • Consistency: 8 of 8 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 3 filed schedules
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 5 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 — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 27/100.
  • High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 5/100.
  • High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 32/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 4/100.