Garden of Dreams Community Preschool and Child Care

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
463594016
IRS 990 coverage
2019–2024
Forms available
Form 990 2024
Location
Battle Creek, MI, USA
Phone
2697880081
Rating
82
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Kindergarten, Preschool, Nursery School, Early Admissions

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$1,181,822
Expenses
$1,134,660
Assets
$917,066
Liabilities
$22,780

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

Leadership & pay

7 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Robin Beasley (Executive Director)
  • Barb Porter (President)

Highest reported compensation

  • Robin Beasley (Executive Director): $92,959 total reported compensation

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

Overview

Mission

Garden of Dreams Community Preschool and Child Care develops young children through safe and affordable daily care. Our programs are rich in diversity through family and community support and involvement.

What it reported doing in 2024

Child Care Programming. Our child care program serves infants through 5 years old during the school year, and school age children during the summer. We serve families by providing affordable child care licensed by the State of Michigan. We have both private pay and DHHS children and we are open Monday - Friday from 6:30 am to 5:30 pm to meet the needs of our families. We offer a summer camp from June - August each year giving children educational and entertaining opportunities in a safe and nurturing environment. Our classrooms have structured daily routines, include time for outdoor play, indoor play, guided learning, and food and rest time. We employ two full time teacher in each classrooms in order to provide consistent caregivers for all of our students. There are also part time care givers who can fill in when teachers need to take breaks or are gone for the day.

Operating model

Revenue model
Other-operating. 72% 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. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and expenses are high relative to revenue.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 77
  • Transparency & Controls: 92
  • Accountability: 84
  • Sustainability: 45
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 85.2%; rating input score 85
  • Program expense ratio: 88.8%; rating input score 89
  • 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: 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: 5 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 62
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Fail
    • CEO compensation review process: Pass
    • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Missing
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 4%; rating input score 47; 47th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.81; rating input score 36; 36th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.02; rating input score 60; 60th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 8.2%; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 9.8% per year; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 9.4% per year; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 27.6% per year; rating input score 100; 89th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 85.2% of revenue deployed · 88.8% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 6 of 6 board members independent · 5 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $1M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $93K · 7 people listed
  • Consistency: 27 of 27 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
  • Filing history: 6 filing years from 2019 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.

Key Signals

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

Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.

  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 2 of 7 not reported.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 47/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 36/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 43/100.
  • High — Grant Readiness: Automatic revocation: this organization had its federal tax-exempt status automatically revoked.