Better Life Children Services
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 680247352
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2010–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2018
- Location
- Sacramento, CA, USA
- Phone
- 9166410661
- Rating
- 85
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,701,665
- Expenses
- $1,797,824
- Assets
- $711,921
- Liabilities
- $514,967
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
6 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Wonda Raymon (President)
Highest reported compensation
- Winifred McNeil (Executive Direc): $96,093 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
To enrich the lives of children, youth, and families by providing quality, culturally sensitive, adoption and foster care services that promote safety, well-being, permanency.
What it reported doing in 2025
Recruiting, training, and approving resource parents; providing temporary placements and care to high-risk foster children; providing case management services to foster children in placement.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 96% 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.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Expenses are high relative to revenue and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 79
- Transparency & Controls: 90
- Accountability: 100
- Sustainability: 21
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 90.7%; rating input score 91
- Program expense ratio: 85.9%; rating input score 86
- Fundraising efficiency: Limited
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- Major donor itemization: Limited
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 8 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -5.7%; rating input score 18; 18th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.4; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.72; rating input score 8; 8th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 5.3%; rating input score 49; 49th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 8.9% per year; rating input score 100; 53rd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 10.1% per year; rating input score 100; 61st percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 11.9% per year; rating input score 100; 61st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 90.7% of revenue deployed · 85.9% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 5 board members independent · 8 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $1.5M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $96K · 6 people listed
- Consistency: 26 of 26 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 16 filing years from 2010 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
- 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 — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 18/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 20/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 8/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 49/100.