Health Leads Inc

What it reported doing in 2025

For 30 years, health leads has worked with communities, caregivers, and institutions to redesign the systems that shape health and wellbeing - shifting decision-making, resources, and power to the people closest to the solutions. Health is shaped far more by the conditions of people's lives - housing, food, transportation, income, care, and the systems people navigate every day - than by what happens in a clinic. And the work in those conditions is largely held already by community-based organizations, caregivers, and the community-based workforce. Health leads' national strategy is organized around three commitments, with one infrastructure layer beneath them. In service of caregivers - community health workers, doulas, promotores, peer support specialists, and family caregivers - health leads works so this workforce is recognized, paid well, and powerful in shaping the systems they work in. Beneath that, health leads helps build the infrastructure that holds the work - strengthening community-based organizations as critical infrastructure in their own right, building community-governed data systems that keep information generated in communities accountable to them, and helping convene the national coordinating layer the field needs. Across all of it, health leads works with caregivers, cbos, alumni, and a broad coalition of partners across organizing, policy, healthcare, public health, philanthropy, and the workforce itself to build a coordinated national movement capable of shifting the policies and practices that determine whether families can live with dignity. Health equity is operationalized in how health leads works: with a majority-people-of-color staff, with a meaningful portion of fundraising flowing to community partners in recognition of the work they do, and with caregivers and cbos in the design seat of the systems being built. Across thirty years and multiple strategic phases, health leads has built the relationships, the practice, and the credibility to do this work alongside many partners - sharing power, sharing what works, and sharing what doesn't.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 22%; rating input score 22
• Program expense ratio: 47.2%; rating input score 47
• Fundraising efficiency: $10.46 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 34; 34th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 93.8%; rating input score 94; 19th percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
  • Compensation committee: Pass
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
  • Written employment contract: Missing
  • Compensation survey or study: Pass
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: 98.6%; rating input score 99; 41st percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 90.9%; rating input score 91; 19th 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: 53.5%; rating input score 92; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.31; rating input score 37; 37th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.13; rating input score 62; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 32.9%; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: -6.4% per year; rating input score 0; 4th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: -1.8% per year; rating input score 0; 3rd percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: -8.3% per year; rating input score 0; 1st percentile among comparable filings