American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
320208451
IRS 990 coverage
2014–2024
Forms available
Form 990 2024, Form 990-N 2010
Location
Chesterfield, MO, USA
Phone
3143987343
Rating
81
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Public Health Program (Includes General Health and Wellness Promotion Services)

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$9,563,334
Expenses
$9,782,296
Assets
$5,037,247
Liabilities
$2,267,597

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

21 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • MICHELLE HAUSER (PRESIDENT EL)
  • PADMAJA PATEL (PRESIDENT)

Highest reported compensation

  • SUSAN BENIGAS (EXECUTIVE DI): $356,550 total reported compensation
  • MARTIN TULL (SR. DEPUTY D): $190,634 total reported compensation
  • JULIE HOLTGRAVE (DEPUTY DIREC): $136,507 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

Mission statement: advancing evidence-based lifestyle medicine to treat, reverse and prevent non-communicable, chronic disease. Vision statement: a nation and world wherein lifestyle medicine is the foundation of health and all healthcare. The american college of lifestyle medicine (aclm) supports its members in providing whole-person, person-centered, integrated, and collaborative care through interdisciplinary teams. A lifestyle medicine-first approach to real "health" care is essential to optimizing value-based care, to achieving the quintuple aim, and to the outcome goal of whole person health. Aclm is the nation's medical professional association representing the field of lifestyle medicine, focused on treating root causes of disease with the goal of health restoration-including medication de-escalation, even discontinuance when disease remission is achieved. Aclm is dedicated to advancing the field of lifestyle medicine through research, advocacy, partnerships, practice advanceme

What it reported doing in 2024

Anniversary year: founded in 2004, 2024 marked aclm's 20th anniversary year, complete with aclm's june 2024 induction into the ama house of delegates. Aclm ended the year with more than 13,500 members, an increase of nearly 2,000% over the past decade. Education & events: spanning the medical education continuum, aclm's work includes a focus on undergraduate medical education (ume), graduate medical education (gme), and continuing medical education (cme) that now includes a wide array of cme/ce-accredited course offerings, including the 18-hour "remission of type 2 and reversal of insulin resistance certificate" course and a multi- module "food as medicine" for medical professionals course. More than 60,000 medical professionals registered for aclm's complimentary 5.5-hour cme/ce accredited "lifestyle medicine and food as medicine essentials" online course, which received in 2024 both the american association of medical society executives (aamse) profiles of excellence award and the american society of association executives (asae) power of associations gold award. Aclm's pledge of 100,000 complimentary course registrations was showcased in support of the white house conference on hunger, nutrition and health and runs through september 2025. Regularly priced at 220, this represents aclm's 22m commitment of complimentary training to advance nutrition in medical education, enhanced by the more than 10,000 complimentary downloads of aclm's culinary medicine curriculum. This year, the lifestyle medicine residency curriculum (lmrc) was contracted into 170 sites and 370 residency programs, representing a 26% annual increase. Aclm has established and facilitates 185 lifestyle medicine interest groups (lmigs), operating on medical (116 of the 185), health professional and health system campuses across the country. This represents a more than 35% annual increase. Within its second year, 70 academic pathway programs have been approved-an 84% year-over-year increase-resulting in students who complete these programs having already fulfilled a significant portion of their prerequisites to sit for the american board of lifestyle medicine (ablm) exam. Aclm developed and launched its ume lifestyle medicine curriculum certification, with the designation of platinum plus given to both university of South Carolina school of medicine and loma linda university. Aclm's lm 2024 scientific conference, hosted in orlando, fl, had a sold-out in-person, record-breaking 4,500 registrants, with 2,200 of these participating virtually. Over 200 research abstracts were accepted. The conference meets the live cme prerequisite to sit for the ablm exam, while aclm's "foundations of lifestyle medicine board review course" serves as the premier non-live board exam preparatory curriculum. There was a 10.5% increase in ablm exam registration between 2023 and 2024 by those desiring certification in the field. Since the inaugural 2017 exam, 3,810 physicians in the u.s. Have become board certified in lifestyle medicine, along with 1,314 other health professionals. Worldwide, across 72 countries, 6,293 physicians and 1,715 other clinicians are certified for a total of 8,008.

Operating model

Revenue model
Other-operating. 69% of the money available for current operations came from other operating revenue.
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. Few specific pay-setting methods are documented in the filing; unanswered boxes are not proof of absence and expenses are high relative to revenue.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 90
  • Transparency & Controls: 65
  • Accountability: 95
  • Sustainability: 24
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 93%; rating input score 93
  • Program expense ratio: 90.2%; rating input score 90
  • Fundraising efficiency: $34.97 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 72; 72nd percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: 0 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 0
    • Compensation committee: Missing
    • Independent consultant: Missing
    • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
    • Written employment contract: Missing
    • Compensation survey or study: Missing
    • Board or committee approval: Missing
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: Limited
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 7 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 88
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Other executive compensation review process: Fail
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -2.3%; rating input score 26; 26th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.51; rating input score 18; 18th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.45; rating input score 24; 24th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 10.7%; rating input score 28; 28th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 28.4% per year; rating input score 100; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 24.9% per year; rating input score 100; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 25.7% per year; rating input score 100; 90th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 93% of revenue deployed · 90.2% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 15 of 15 board members independent · 7 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $8.8M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $357K · 21 people listed · 0 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $2.4M reported
  • Consistency: 25 of 25 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes major donors and executive pay
  • Filing history: 10 filing years from 2014 to 2024
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 7 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.
  • Staff and benefit plans: Retirement and health plans the organization files with the Department of Labor, and the people in them.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

  • High — Transparency & Controls: Pay-setting controls scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 26/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 18/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 24/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 28/100.