Erie Family Health Center

What it reported doing in 2024

Erie family health center (erie), a federally qualified health center, is a regional healthcare resource for more than 94,000 patients, mostly low-income, who are served in the chicago area at thirteen locations: seven large primary care centers, five school-based health centers and our teen center-the region's oldest and largest health center dedicated to adolescents. Since the onset of the covid-19 health crisis, erie has also offered telehealth services to assure continuous, safe access to essential healthcare. To empower our mission and vision and to fulfill erie's values of social justice, impact, excellence, relationships, and learning, erie provides a comprehensive array of health services to promote lifelong wellness among the community's most vulnerable members. Since growing from a one-room location in 1957, erie has sustained our commitment to helping meet the needs of residents in disinvested communities. Uniquely positioned to meet the needs of community members. Erie health centers offer a wide range of high quality, affordable services, including integrated medical, oral, and behavioral healthcare; chronic disease management; vaccines and flu shots; HIV testing; sti testing/treatment; prenatal care; and reproductive health services, with programs intentionally designed to meet the needs of erie's individual patients. Erie provides access to affordable, holistic, and high-quality healthcare for people experiencing poverty and multiple obstacles to good health. Erie will continue to invest in efforts to ensure staff are reflective of those it serves, which will, in turn, provide economic stimulus to the communities erie serves. Recognizing that factors in our patients' lives have a deep impact on their health and well-being, erie offers a robust array of education and support services beyond our exam rooms and health center walls. These include, among others, one on- one and personalized health education and support services, healthcare navigation for insurance benefits and enrollment. Erie also screens patients for the social drivers of health-conditions in the environments in which they work and live that affect health-and links them to community resources such as housing assistance, food and baby supplies. Erie continues to strive toward achieving the high-quality outcomes that have placed it in the top tier of health centers. In 2025, erie received the gold award as a health center quality leader from the u.s. Health resources and services administration (hrsa), placing erie in the top 10% of community health centers nationally. Further, erie delivers more babies than any other community health center in Illinois and ranks in the top 1% nationally for number of deliveries. A leader in training the next generation of healthcare providers, in 2023 erie partnered with top academic medical centers to offer onsite medical training through nine residency and fellowship programs. These include residencies in family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics; a fellowship in pulmonology; and a fellowship program for nurse practitioners and nurse midwives. In addition, erie provides training for medical and dental students. In total, erie trains more than 250 providers at its health center sites annually. Erie also offers a medical assistant training program that educates students for certification as medical assistants and prepares them to work as part of a care team in a community health setting.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 80.3%; rating input score 80
• Program expense ratio: 86.4%; rating input score 86
• Fundraising efficiency: $24.23 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 62; 62nd percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 95%; rating input score 95; 34th percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 5 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 83
  • Compensation committee: Pass
  • Independent consultant: Pass
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Pass
  • Written employment contract: Missing
  • Compensation survey or study: Pass
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: 24%; rating input score 24; 7th percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Yes; rating input score 100

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 77th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • 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: 7.7%; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.99; rating input score 39; 39th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.17; rating input score 72; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 3%; rating input score 37; 37th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 9.3% per year; rating input score 100; 71st percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 9.9% per year; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 11.6% per year; rating input score 100; 77th percentile among comparable filings