MEAN Girls Empowerment
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 810929818
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2025–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2024, Form 990-N 2022
- Location
- Lynwood, IL, USA
- Phone
- 7084662101
- Rating
- 64
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Youth Development Programs
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $225,945
- Expenses
- $219,752
- Assets
- $80,880
- Liabilities
- $697
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
8 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Shatina Edwards (Founder & Chief Executive Officer)
- Keneatha Johnson (Board President)
Highest reported compensation
- Shatina Edwards (Founder & Chief Executive Officer): $37,725 total reported compensation
- Zaria McNeal (Program Manager): $29,421 total reported compensation
- Karen Dean (Program Coordinator): $8,723 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Provider of violence prevention, mentoring, and social-emotional learning programming for youth in underserved communities.
What it reported doing in 2025
Community Youth Services CYS Provided violence prevention, mentoring, and social and emotional learning programming for youth in underserved communities. Participants engaged in workshops focused on leadership, conflict resolution, and healthy decision-making. 60 youth served.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 61% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent spending detail to tell whether the nonprofit works directly or through others.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and most voting board members are independent. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and a relatively small share of total spending goes to programs.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 52
- Transparency & Controls: 80
- Accountability: 72
- Sustainability: 31
- Growth: 60
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 50.2%; rating input score 50
- Program expense ratio: 51.6%; rating input score 52
- Fundraising efficiency: $32.38 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 75%; rating input score 75; 0th 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; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 3 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 33
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Fail
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- 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: Fail
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 2.7%; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.37; rating input score 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.01; rating input score 40; 40th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 40.1%; rating input score 6; 6th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: Limited
- Revenue growth: 19.6% per year; rating input score 100; 86th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 24.8% per year; rating input score 100; 87th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 50.2% of revenue deployed · 51.6% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 5 of 5 board members independent · 3 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $115K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $38K · 8 people listed
- Consistency: 25 of 29 current checks pass · 4 findings to review
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 9 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.
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 — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 50/100.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 52/100.
- Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 6 of 9 not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 42/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 19/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Functional expense sum did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Part IX DepreciationDepletion column sum did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule D other liabilities reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 6/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 40/100.
- High — Grant Readiness: Automatic revocation: this organization had its federal tax-exempt status automatically revoked.