Falls Church-McLean Children's Center
Legal name: Falls Church-mclean Childrens Center Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 540841262
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2014–2024
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Falls Church, VA, USA
- Phone
- 703-534-4907
- Rating
- 87
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Kindergarten, Preschool, Nursery School, Early Admissions
- Affiliation
- Christianity
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $1,926,474
- Expenses
- $1,818,098
- Assets
- $3,413,561
- Liabilities
- $84,325
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
7 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- LISA HURWITZ (President)
- SONYA POWELL (Vice President)
Highest reported compensation
- HALLYE SMITH (Executive Dir.): $100,242 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
FCMLCC provides a comprehensive, high quality early childhood program designed to give all young children, regardless of their family’s economic resources, a strong foundation on which to build the rest of their lives. A comprehensive, research and play based curriculum. Our philosophy is that children learn best through play-based learning. Hands-on active learning with carefully chosen materials in organized classrooms, allows children to learn through experiment and discovery. Our qualified teachers provide guidance as children explore and learn new skills. Low student-teacher ratios There are three teachers in each of our classrooms. Our two year old class has a 1:4 teacher to child ratio, our three year old classes have a 1:5 ratio, and our four year old classes have a 1:6 ratio. Our low student to teacher ratio allows teachers more time to individually interact with every...
What it reported doing in 2024
12 of our children have developmental delays. All of them qualify for on-site and class based special education services through child find. 27 children left for kindergarten. 77% of students in the four-year-old program met or exceeded expectation for kindergarten (including the 9 students who did not go to kindergarten due to birthdays. They must turn 5 by september 30th). Students below expected levels are receiving services for areas of need, or families were advised to apply for services at child find. Additionally, 11 received private speech and language therapy, and 3 participating in play therapy through fcmlcc.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
- 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. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 83
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 90
- Sustainability: 56
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 84.1%; rating input score 84
- Program expense ratio: 88.1%; rating input score 88
- Fundraising efficiency: $23.18 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 62; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
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: 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: 6 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 75
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- 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: 5.6%; rating input score 52; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.88; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.02; rating input score 60; 60th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 5.5%; rating input score 52; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 1.3% per year; rating input score 100; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 4.1% per year; rating input score 100; 38th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 19.4% per year; rating input score 100; 81st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 1 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 1 operating location identified
- Where the money goes: 84.1% of revenue deployed · 88.1% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 6 of 6 board members independent · 6 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $1.6M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $100K · 7 people listed
- Consistency: 25 of 25 current checks pass
- Schedules: 5 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 11 filing years from 2014 to 2024
- 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.
- 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.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 8 not reported.
- Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 52/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 52/100.