Literacy Kansas City

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
431435729
IRS 990 coverage
2010–2024
Forms available
Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2016
Location
Kansas City, MO, USA
Phone
8163339332
Rating
80
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$4,177,118
Expenses
$4,410,997
Assets
$4,228,435
Liabilities
$2,580,562

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

Leadership & pay

15 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • GILLIAN FORD HELM (CEO)
  • PAUL DEFOE (PRESIDENT)

Highest reported compensation

  • GILLIAN FORD HELM (CEO): $173,463 total reported compensation
  • KIM GRAVES (COO): $128,533 total reported compensation

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

Overview

Mission

To advance literacy within the Kansas city metropolitan area through direct services, advocacy, and collaboration.

What it reported doing in 2024

Literacy kc offers a welcoming community for adults and families to improve literacy skills and enhance quality of life. Each term, staff, tutors, volunteers, and instructors build a collaborative learning environment where adult students expand their reading, writing, math, and digital skills. This personalized approach allows students to shape the instruction they receive and delivers a balanced curriculum, leading to improved literacy and life skills. Our model has three key parts. Instructor led: qualified instructors teach relevant, responsive, and level-appropriate curriculum. Tutor-driven: trained volunteer tutors support the instructors and help meet individual student needs. Student-centered: each student identifies academic and personal goals and instructors design lessons to help them meet these goals. Our programming includes high school equivalency preparation classes, english language learning, excel adult high school (in partnership with kc public library and mid-continent public library), digital literacy classes, workforce development, and the let's read family reading program. During 2024-2025, lkc ran 78 classes with 1,875 students having 115,000 student instruction hours. Of these students, 853 demonstrated a gain in proficiency through testing, passed their hiset/ged, or received a certification. Fifty-eight achieved their high school equivalency and 107 students participated in ietp.

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 99% 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. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and expenses are high relative to revenue.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 81
  • Transparency & Controls: 75
  • Accountability: 95
  • Sustainability: 26
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 83.5%; rating input score 84
  • Program expense ratio: 85.6%; rating input score 86
  • Fundraising efficiency: $16.54 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 54; 54th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
    • Compensation committee: Missing
    • Independent consultant: Missing
    • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
    • Written employment contract: Missing
    • Compensation survey or study: Missing
    • Board or committee approval: Pass
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
  • 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: 8 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 89
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: Pass
    • 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 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.96; rating input score 35; 35th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.61; rating input score 16; 16th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 6.8%; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 19.7% per year; rating input score 100; 85th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 14.6% per year; rating input score 100; 81st percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 17.5% per year; rating input score 100; 80th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 83.5% of revenue deployed · 85.6% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 13 of 13 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $3.8M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $173K · 15 people listed · 1 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Consistency: 35 of 35 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
  • Filing history: 14 filing years from 2010 to 2024
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
  • Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
  • 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 — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 54/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 19/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 35/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 16/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 42/100.