Ohio Children's Alliance
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 341168205
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2011–2025
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025
- Location
- Columbus, OH, USA
- Phone
- (614) 461-0014
- Rating
- 89
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Standard
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $15,316,880
- Expenses
- $15,477,297
- Assets
- $9,266,026
- Liabilities
- $6,255,506
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
19 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Jane Anderson (President)
- Sarah Steuer (Immediate Past-President)
- Vickie Thompson-Sandy (President - Elect)
- Mark Mecum (CEO)
People named in this filing
- Jane Anderson (President)
- Kelli Ott (Secretary - 03/31/2025)
- Paul Haffner (Secretary - Exit 03/31/2025)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Improving the lives of Ohio's children, youth, and families.
What it reported doing in 2025
Conferences and trainings to present best practices in trauma informed care, behavior management strategies, child and family services, Medicaid back office readiness, middle management and public policy issues. Advocacy services to ensure that Ohio's evolving public policies result in a system that is integrated, efficient, cost effective, and beneficial to those that matter most children and families. We work closely with state government officials, including leaders at ODJFS, Ohio MHAS, Medicaid, the governor's office, general assembly, and officials at the county and federal levels. Coordination and provide support services to other advocacy and collaborative groups that support services to children.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Grant-funded. 85% of the money available for current operations came from government grants.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 82% 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 filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 98
- Transparency & Controls: 88
- Accountability: 88
- Sustainability: 25
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 97.8%; rating input score 98
- Program expense ratio: 96.8%; rating input score 97
- Fundraising efficiency: $4,114.58 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 99; 99th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 93.3%; rating input score 93; 16th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 68.6%; rating input score 69; 20th 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; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 5 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 71
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -1%; rating input score 17; 17th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.6; rating input score 15; 15th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.68; rating input score 15; 15th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 96; 96th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 18.9% per year; rating input score 100; 86th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 19.2% per year; rating input score 100; 91st percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 20.6% per year; rating input score 100; 91st percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 10 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 1 operating location identified
- Where the money goes: 97.8% of revenue deployed · 96.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 15 of 15 board members independent · 5 of 7 filing controls reported
- Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $15M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 19 people listed
- Consistency: 34 of 35 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
- Filing history: 14 filing years from 2011 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 30 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 31 filed related-organization links
- 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 17/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 15/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 15/100.