American Leadership Academy
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 270333296
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2013–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Mesa, AZ, USA
- Phone
- 4804202101
- Rating
- 89
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Charter Schools
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $175,836,703
- Expenses
- $199,426,800
- Assets
- $654,967,517
- Liabilities
- $687,842,721
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
6 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- RALPH PEW (PRESIDENT)
- LACEY BROWN (VICE PRESIDENT)
People named in this filing
- RALPH PEW (PRESIDENT)
- LACEY BROWN (VICE PRESIDENT)
- BRANDON CLARKE (TREASURER)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
To provide the best educational experience to as many students as possible in a moral and wholesome environment.
What it reported doing in 2024
American leadership academy is a tuition-free, publicly funded, k-12 charter school with 23 campuses across the east valley. Since 2009, ala has combined academic excellence and character development to create an exceptional educational experience for over 15,000 students across all their campuses. Ala provides an environment where students can thrive as leaders in the classroom and on the field through aia and caa championship sports, intramural sports for elementary students, as well as award-winning fine arts programs. Through its mission, ala prepares its students to not just be great students of today but great leaders of tomorrow. Continued on schedule oala operates a pre-k program at 12 of its campuses with an enrollment of over 500 students. This tuition based program prepares early learners for kindergarten by building ala curriculum-aligned foundations for reading, math, and science and providing them with opportunities to develop social skills that will make them successful learners.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 83% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program 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.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 91
- Transparency & Controls: 94
- Accountability: 88
- Sustainability: 38
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 94.6%; rating input score 95
- Program expense ratio: 83.3%; rating input score 83
- Fundraising efficiency: $25,905.26 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 99; 99th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 68th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 5 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 71
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -13.4%; rating input score 6; 6th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.28; rating input score 78; 78th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 1.05; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 98; 98th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 16.9% per year; rating input score 100; 89th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 16.6% per year; rating input score 100; 91st percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 20.2% per year; rating input score 100; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 94.6% of revenue deployed · 83.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 5 board members independent · 5 of 7 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $166.1M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 6 people listed
- Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $71.9M reported
- Consistency: 34 of 34 current checks pass
- Schedules: 9 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 12 filing years from 2013 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: Resolved incoming and outgoing counterparties from filed money flows.
- Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
- 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.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 7 not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 6/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 5/100.