The Vermont Children's Alliance

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
273145131
IRS 990 coverage
2015–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2020
Location
Rutland, VT, USA
Phone
8023798846
Rating
50
Verdict
MIXED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Child Abuse, Prevention

Reported finances

Revenue
$348,564
Expenses
$264,970
Assets
$87,168
Liabilities
$4,643

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

9 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Chris St Cyr (President)
  • Lisa Bonser (Vice President)
  • Patti Randall (Executive Director)

Highest reported compensation

  • Patti Randall (Executive Director): $70,967 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

To provide support services to local communities and childrens advocacy centers, to service as a resource and to facilitate a network dedicated to coordinated and comprehensive response to child abuse.

What it reported doing in 2025

As an accredited state chapter of the National Childrens Alliance (NCA), the Vermont Childrens Alliance (VCA) continued to grow in its ability to support and serve its 13 member child advocacy centers (CACs). In hiring an Outreach Education Coordinator and a Training & Special Projects Coordinator, we are not only able to better serve our programs and ensure MDT members are propertly training to serve children and families affected by abuse, we are able to bring awareness to communities across the state. The VCA supported several programs attendace required or otherwise desired to enhance the support the capacity of each program to serve its local community. The VCA providing funding for Basic as well as Extended Interview Training and continued to contract with a specialist to off statewide forensic Interview Peer Review. Additional, we teamed up with the Zero Abuse Project and offered LGBTQIA+ children in the Forensic Interview training to our statewide partners on top of supporting attendance at various trainings and conferences like the International Symposium on Child Abuse, Crimes against Children, and the International Forensic Nurse Conference. The VCA continues to engage in public awareness/social media campaigns intended to enhance the publics knowledge and awareness of child abuse and sexual violence. Finally, we continue to oversee the Outcome Measurement System (OMS) throughout our state; the OS enables our programs to obtain valuable feedback from their clients and partners about areas of strength as well as areas of challenge.

Operating model

Revenue model
Grant-funded. 81% 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.

The verdict

MIXED - Most voting board members are independent and program spending has grown recently. 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: 21
  • Transparency & Controls: 58
  • Accountability: 90
  • Sustainability: 45
  • Growth: 80

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 21.3%; rating input score 21
  • Program expense ratio: 28%; rating input score 28
  • Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 90.9%; rating input score 91; 15th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: Scored; rating input score 0
  • Major donor itemization: Limited
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 6 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 75
    • 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: Missing
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 24%; rating input score 75; 75th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.33; rating input score 18; 18th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.05; rating input score 27; 27th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 26.8%; rating input score 13; 13th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 6.1% per year; rating input score 100; 55th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 7.6% per year; rating input score 100; 60th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: -0.8% per year; rating input score 0; 19th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 21.3% of revenue deployed · 28% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 12 of 12 board members independent · 6 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $74K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $71K · 9 people listed
  • Consistency: 23 of 24 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes grants
  • Filing history: 9 filing years from 2015 to 2025
  • 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.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

  • High — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 21/100.
  • High — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 28/100.
  • High — Transparency & Controls: Grant itemization coverage scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 18/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
  • High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 13/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 27/100.