Love to Grow On

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN: 411915522
IRS 990 coverage: 2019–2024
Forms available: Form 990 2024
Location: Lino Lakes, MN, USA
Phone: 7637924428
Rating: 85
Verdict: STRONG
Rating confidence: Moderate
Sector: Child Day Care

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue: $2,490,352
Expenses: $2,709,244
Assets: $4,679,261
Liabilities: $3,278,149

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

Leadership & pay

9 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

KRISTINE SABURN (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR)

Highest reported compensation

KRISTINE SABURN (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR): $58,471 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 provide learning opportunities, values, and encouragement to children & parents through our early childhood proagram. We serve infants through school-age children in a full day, year round program. Our facility uses creative and hands-on approach to learning we value arts and relationship building.

What it reported doing in 2024

Love to grow on served over 150 children between 6 weeks and age 12. Our faculty of 58 teachers, AIDS and support staff worked to create rich learning environments and to explore a variety of topics with the children. Our low child to adult ratios and qualified teaching teams provided opportunities for children to explore arts, dance, music, sculpture, theater light and shadow play, and many more. Our kindness emphasis allows us to talk to children about values such as cooperation, empathy, forgiveness and respect. We focus on the whole child and bring learning into all areas of the curriculum. Daily out door exploration, large motor time, science, math, and literacy build skills that ensure children will be prepared for school. A key place of our philosophy centers on relationship building. We work to support parent-child relationships while also building teacher-child and parent-teacher relationships. Our program provides many opportunities for parents to participate inculding parent rights, art exhibitions and parenting classes. We are open to serving families regardless.

Operating model

Revenue model: Earned-program. 91% 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.

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 some filed totals do not add up.

Rating breakdown

Financial Efficiency: 88
Transparency & Controls: 84
Accountability: 95
Sustainability: 34
Growth: 80

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

Mission deployment rate: 92.4%; rating input score 92
Program expense ratio: 84.9%; rating input score 85
Fundraising efficiency: $62.68 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 81; 81st percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

Consistency checks: 92.9%; rating input score 93; 13th percentile among comparable filings
Pay-setting controls: Limited
Foreign activity oversight: Limited
Grant itemization coverage: Limited
Major donor itemization: Limited
Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
Governance controls: 7 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 88
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- 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: Fail
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

Operating margin: -8.8%; rating input score 15; 15th percentile among comparable filings
Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.73; rating input score 57; 57th percentile among comparable filings
Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.7; rating input score 13; 13th percentile among comparable filings
Officer compensation ratio: 2.2%; rating input score 75; 75th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

Program expense growth: 11.7% per year; rating input score 100; 69th percentile among comparable filings
Revenue growth: 9% per year; rating input score 100; 65th percentile among comparable filings
Asset growth: -1.7% per year; rating input score 0; 8th percentile among comparable filings

Details

Where the money goes: 92.4% of revenue deployed · 84.9% of spending went to programs
Governance: 9 of 8 board members independent · 7 of 8 filing controls reported
Programs: 2 filed program accomplishments · $2.3M in reported program spending
Leadership: top reported pay $58K · 9 people listed
Consistency: 27 of 28 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
Schedules: 4 filed schedules
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.
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 15/100.
Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Independent members within voting members did not reconcile in the filed values.
Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Audit committee oversight not reported.
High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 57/100.
High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 13/100.