Methods
CrewGraphs is a reference for the identity and nonprofit finances of US rowing organizations, built entirely from public IRS filings. Every figure on the site carries its provenance: click any number to see the exact filing, form line, and parser version it came from. This page documents the rules that connect a filing to a figure — and the places where the honest answer is “the form doesn’t say.”
Data through the Aug 31, 2026 publish.
Everything published here originates in five public sources. Filings are fetched as the IRS-published XML, stored immutably with checksums, and parsed by our own extractor — no source’s numbers are republished wholesale, and no figure is displayed without a link back to where it came from.
Per-filing XML is retrieved from the GivingTuesday 990 Data Lake, which is made available under the Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0; databases derived from it, including this one, remain subject to its share-alike terms. ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer is used to cross-check our extraction — six anchor values per filing must match exactly — but ProPublica values are never published as CrewGraphs facts. Our concept map was seeded with reference to the Nonprofit Open Data Collective’s master concordance, which we acknowledge with thanks.
CrewGraphs extracts a fixed catalog of 24 financial concepts from each Form 990 or 990-EZ — nothing more. Each concept maps to specific elements of the IRS e-file XML schema, listed below exactly as the extractor reads them (concept map cm-2026.07.1). The provenance drawer on any figure shows the same element as the value’s source path.
When the map or extractor changes, filings are re-parsed under a new version and the results are published as new value rows — published history is corrected forward, never edited in place.
| Concept | Form 990 | Form 990-EZ |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | ||
| Total revenue | CYTotalRevenueAmt | TotalRevenueAmt |
| Revenue less expenses | CYRevenuesLessExpensesAmt | ExcessOrDeficitForYearAmt |
| Contributions & grantsOn the full 990 this line includes membership dues treated as contributions; on the EZ it does not. | CYContributionsGrantsAmt | ContributionsGiftsGrantsEtcAmt |
| Program service revenue | CYProgramServiceRevenueAmt | ProgramServiceRevenueAmt |
| Membership duesAn optional line — many clubs report member income as program service revenue instead. | MembershipDuesAmt | MembershipDuesAmt |
| Investment income | CYInvestmentIncomeAmt | InvestmentIncomeAmt |
| Fundraising events (gross) | FundraisingGrossIncomeAmtGrossIncomeFundraisingEventsAmt | FundraisingGrossIncomeAmt |
| Fundraising events (net)On the full 990 this is computed: gross event income minus direct event expenses. | FundraisingGrossIncomeAmtFundraisingDirectExpensesAmt | SpecialEventsNetIncomeLossAmt |
| Other revenue | CYOtherRevenueAmt | OtherRevenueTotalAmt |
| Expenses | ||
| Total expenses | CYTotalExpensesAmt | TotalExpensesAmt |
| Grants paid | CYGrantsAndSimilarPaidAmt | GrantsAndSimilarAmountsPaidAmt |
| Salaries & benefits | CYSalariesCompEmpBnftPaidAmt | SalariesOtherCompEmplBnftAmt |
| Officer compensationOn the EZ this is summed across the officer table rather than read from a single line. | CompCurrentOfcrDirectorsGrp/TotalAmtCompCurrentOfcrDirectorsAmt | OfficerDirectorTrusteeEmplGrp/CompensationAmt |
| Professional fundraising fees | FeesForServicesProfFundraisingGrp/TotalAmtFeesForServicesProfFundraising | — |
| Occupancy | OccupancyGrp/TotalAmt | OccupancyRentUtltsAndMaintAmt |
| Program service expense | TotalFunctionalExpensesGrp/ProgramServicesAmt | TotalProgramServiceExpensesAmt |
| Management & general expense | TotalFunctionalExpensesGrp/ManagementAndGeneralAmt | — |
| Fundraising expense | TotalFunctionalExpensesGrp/FundraisingAmt | — |
| Balance sheet | ||
| Total assets (end of year) | TotalAssetsEOYAmtTotalAssetsGrp/EOYAmt | Form990TotalAssetsGrp/EOYAmt |
| Total liabilities (end of year) | TotalLiabilitiesEOYAmtTotalLiabilitiesGrp/EOYAmt | SumOfTotalLiabilitiesGrp/EOYAmt |
| Net assets (end of year) | TotalNetAssetsFundBalanceGrp/EOYAmtNetAssetsOrFundBalancesEOYAmt | NetAssetsOrFundBalancesEOYAmtNetAssetsOrFundBalancesGrp/EOYAmt |
| Cash & savings (end of year)On the full 990 this sums two cash lines. The EZ line also mixes in investments, so EZ values are marked partial. | CashNonInterestBearingGrp/EOYAmtSavingsAndTempCashInvstGrp/EOYAmt | CashSavingsAndInvestmentsGrp/EOYAmt |
| Land, buildings & equipment (net) | LandBldgEquipBasisNetGrp/EOYAmt | LandAndBuildingsGrp/EOYAmt |
| Organization | ||
| Employee count | TotalEmployeeCnt | — |
Where two elements are listed, filings across schema years name the same line differently and the extractor accepts either. A dash means the form has no such line — see the missing-vs-zero rule below.
The strictest rule on the site: an absence of data is never shown as a value of zero. The two mean different things, and IRS forms make the distinction constantly.
Every published value carries one of five quality states, shown as a chip wherever the value appears:
Comparisons align on the IRS tax year (TaxYr) from each return’s header, not the calendar year the fiscal year happens to end in — for a June-fiscal-year club, “FY2023” is the year that began in July 2023. Each organization’s fiscal year end month is surfaced alongside, and the compare page defaults to the newest tax year all selected organizations have filed.
A caution that matters in rowing: the racing name on the water and the legal entity that files with the IRS are different things in roughly two of every five organizations here — booster clubs, school programs, sibling foundations. Profiles state whose money is being shown and link related entities, and comparisons should be read the same way.
When an organization files an amended return, the amendment becomes the authoritative source for that year and its figures carry an “amended” marker. The superseded original is retained — provenance links keep working — but it no longer feeds published figures.
Officer and director listings come from each filing’s compensation schedule (Form 990 Part VII; the 990-EZ officer table). Most rowing nonprofit boards are volunteers, so profiles list compensated individuals with their reported role, hours, and compensation, and summarize uncompensated directors as a count — less noise, and no republishing of volunteers’ names. People appear for every filed year, exactly as reported.
Derived metrics are versioned definitions, published with the same provenance as raw concepts. There is deliberately no composite “club score”: each metric states what it measures, what a value needs to qualify, and what it cannot tell you.
compensation_intensity · v1 · percent
Salaries and benefits ÷ total expenses, per fiscal year.
Eligibility: Total expenses must be positive in that fiscal year.
Limitation: Reflects all reported compensation, not coaching payroll specifically.
contribution_dependency · v1 · percent
Contributions and grants ÷ total revenue, per fiscal year.
Eligibility: Total revenue must be positive in that fiscal year.
Limitation: Clubs classify member income differently; compare within similar program types.
membership_dues_share · v1 · percent
Membership dues ÷ total revenue, per fiscal year.
Eligibility: Total revenue must be positive in that fiscal year. Membership dues must be reported on the filing (not absent).
Limitation: The dues line is optional on Form 990; many clubs report member income as program service revenue instead.
operating_margin · v1 · percent
(Total revenue − total expenses) ÷ total revenue, per fiscal year.
Eligibility: Total revenue must be positive in that fiscal year.
Limitation: A single year can swing on one-time gifts or capital projects; not a health grade.
program_service_share · v1 · percent
Program service revenue ÷ total revenue, per fiscal year.
Eligibility: Total revenue must be positive in that fiscal year.
Limitation: Membership and entry fees may be reported as program service revenue or dues depending on the club.
revenue_cagr · v1 · percent
Compound annual growth rate between the earliest and latest comparable total-revenue observations in the selected window.
Eligibility: At least 3 comparable annual observations.
Limitation: Requires at least three comparable annual filings; window boundaries are disclosed with the value.
If a figure looks wrong, it is either faithfully extracted from a filing that is itself wrong, or our extraction erred — both are worth hearing about. Every profile has a report a correction entry point; corrections are reviewed by a person and resolved through the same audited process as every other identity decision on the site.