Southwest Human Development
Legal name: Southwest Human Development Incorporated
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 860407179
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2009–2024
- Official website data refreshed
- Aug 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Phoenix, AZ, USA
- Phone
- (602) 266-5976
- Rating
- 87
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Standard
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $72,178,986
- Expenses
- $77,450,565
- Assets
- $61,473,788
- Liabilities
- $11,807,307
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
30 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- GINGER WARD (CEO)
- MICHELLE LUNA-KEPNER (VICE PRESIDENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES)
Highest reported compensation
- GINGER WARD (CEO): $260,151 total reported compensation
- JEANETTE RAMOS (CFO): $199,256 total reported compensation
- ALISON STEIER (CO-DIRECTOR MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES): $186,499 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 support young children and their families to build a strong foundation for success.
What it reported doing in 2024
Professional development and training and literacy: southwest human development offers nationally recognized education and training programs to professionals and organizations working with young children across Arizona, the u.s. And internationally. The agency is committed to training that is interactive and applicable to everyday work with children and families. Key elements include group participation, discussion of real-life problems and implementation of ideas learned during the training experience. Core programs include language and literacy communities, quality first academy, quality first assessment and quality first coaching / incentives. During fiscal year 2025, we provided 8,295 coaching hours to early care and education professionals, trained 1,624 early care and education professionals and performed 3,438 child care assessments. Our early communication, language and literacy programs help young children build the skills they need to become successful readers now, while laying the foundation for lifelong literacy. During fiscal year 2025, we served 65,204 children and partnered with 50 medical practices. Also central to this work is the professional development institute (pdi) at educare Arizona, which was founded in 2018 with the vision to act as the state's leading early learning professional workforce development entity. Its goal is to improve early childhood education teacher quality and practice, which will lead to better outcomes for children, including preparation for kindergarten and beyond. A centralized institute at educare Arizona brings all of the components needed for a high-quality early childhood education professional development to one place, acting as a living laboratory and providing the opportunity for direct observation of high-quality teaching practices and environments and hands-on learning focused on individual teacher and/or director professional development needs. During fiscal year 2025, the pdi performed 3,482 coaching sessions to child care centers, trained 2,393 early care and education professionals. The support line received 657 calls to assist child care centers and 53 child care centers were enrolled in bookkeeping sessions.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Grant-funded. 90% of the money available for current operations came from government grants.
- 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: 88
- Transparency & Controls: 88
- Accountability: 95
- Sustainability: 29
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 91.7%; rating input score 92
- Program expense ratio: 84.7%; rating input score 85
- Fundraising efficiency: $71.07 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 80; 80th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 68th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Compensation committee: Pass
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Pass
- 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; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Yes; rating input score 100
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 77th 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: -7.3%; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.79; rating input score 31; 31st percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.19; rating input score 70; 70th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 1.8%; rating input score 60; 60th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 2.8% per year; rating input score 100; 21st percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 4.4% per year; rating input score 100; 37th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 12.6% per year; rating input score 100; 80th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 15 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 1 operating location identified
- Where the money goes: 91.7% of revenue deployed · 84.7% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 22 of 22 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 6 filed program accomplishments · $65.6M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $260K · 30 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $9.7M reported
- Consistency: 35 of 36 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, executive pay, and related organizations
- Filing history: 16 filing years from 2009 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 7 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 10/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 31/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.