Lionheart Children's Academy

Overview

Mission

To see the lives of children and families transformed by the Gospel through Christ-centered childcare and summer camps in partnership with the local church. Niema’s journey in early childhood education started as a young girl in church with family helping her parents facilitate Vacation Bible School. Little did she know VBS would be the beginning of her passion and purpose joined together bringing others to Christ. She has been actively involved with early childhood education for over 20 years. Her ECE career started as a counselor working with teenage homeless mothers in a shelter, then transitioned to the classroom and operations. Her greatest passion is working with children, families, and staff to provide a nurturing environment where they can grow, learn, and make memories to last a lifetime. In her spare time, you can find Niema and her hu.

Operating model

Revenue model

Earned-program. 88% 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.

• Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.

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: 95
• Transparency & Controls: 76
• Accountability: 88
• Sustainability: 12
• Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Details

• What they do: 3 programs and campaigns described on the official site
• Where the money goes: 99.2% of revenue deployed · 91.5% of spending went to programs
• Governance: 7 of 8 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
• Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $36M in reported program spending
• Leadership: top reported pay $345K · 17 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
• Consistency: 32 of 33 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
• Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes major donors and executive pay
• Filing history: 10 filing years from 2014 to 2024
• Contacts: How to reach this organization
• Money network: 11 filed money-flow records
• Related organizations: 1 filed related-organization link
• 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.

• High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 6/100.
• High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 4/100.
• Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
• High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 5/100.
• Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.