Louisiana · Nonprofit
RIVERS INSTITUTE
RIVERS INSTITUTE (Louisiana) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $847,350 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($300,000). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 72% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.1M
- Funders on record
- 8
- Grants received
- $847k
- Net assets
- $722k
What Rivers Institute does
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.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
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,…
$554,935 spentof which $21,500 as grants$6,342 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $554,935.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2021, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2021, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2024 to 2025, from $472k to $886k (+88%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
99% of RIVERS INSTITUTE’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 5 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Board chair
Adam Hawf
Chairperson
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2020 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 4 funders, grant income rose $30k → $103k.
3 of 8 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 72% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of RIVERS INSTITUTE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
RIVERS INSTITUTE leans on a few funders — its largest provides 35% of grant income and the top three 85%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
73% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund RIVERS INSTITUTE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2020 100% · 2021 88% · 2022 94% · 2023 49% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Where its funders are
72% of RIVERS INSTITUTE's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $237k that is directly attributable, 75% of it comes from funders outside Louisiana, across 3 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $610k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
RIVERS INSTITUTE runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 3,430 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,430 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like RIVERS INSTITUTE
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Louisiana
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
66% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for RIVERS INSTITUTE: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds RIVERS INSTITUTE?
- RIVERS INSTITUTE (Louisiana) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $847,350 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($300,000). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 72% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does RIVERS INSTITUTE have?
- IRS filings report 8 organizations giving $847,350 in grants to RIVERS INSTITUTE, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of RIVERS INSTITUTE?
- DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC is the largest funder on record, with $300,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like RIVERS INSTITUTE find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Louisiana. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2021–2025), and the filings of 8 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing