United Way of Central Massachusetts Inc

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
042104017
IRS 990 coverage
2018–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025
Location
Worcester, MA, USA
Phone
5087575631
Rating
82
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Moderate

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$1,429,440
Expenses
$1,498,591
Assets
$15,505,826
Liabilities
$1,533,437

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

Leadership & pay

24 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • TIMOTHY J GARVIN (PRESIDENT AND CEO)
  • LYNN CHENEY (VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNIC)

People named in this filing

  • EDWARD H WHITE (AT-LARGE BOARD MEMBER)
  • CHE ANDERSON (AT-LARGE BOARD MEMBER)
  • GINA PLATA-NINO (AT-LARGE BOARD MEMBER)

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

United way of central ma connects people and resources to improve the community.

What it reported doing in 2025

Community impact program - the community impact program plays a critical role in improving our community. Our work is organized around education, improving family financial stability, advancing racial equity, and fostering healthy behaviors. In addition, this program helps to provide services to meet basic needs such as food, shelter, protective services, and crisis intervention. United way of central Massachusetts' (uwcm) staff and volunteers, through a competitive process, evaluate funding proposals, select the highest quality agency programs to fund, and monitor program results to ensure maximum community impact. From july to september 2025, 40 funded programs provided services in one or more of our focus areas.uwcm in partnership with the united ways of north central and south central Massachusetts received after school and out of school time subgrant funding from the Massachusetts department of elementary and secondary education. The funding was made avaialable from the commonwealth of Massachusetts state budgte line item 7061-9814 and state budget line 7061-9611. From july to september 2025, a total of $465,500 was provided for 40 agency or municipality programs to support youth programming for children in pre-k to 12th grade. This funding was provided to help summer programs strengthen the quality of and increase access to learning and enrichment programs that imporve academic, college and career readiness and social-emotional outcomes for youth.

Operating model

Revenue model
Grant-funded. 73% of the money available for current operations came from government grants.
Distribution model
Direct operator. The filing allocates 98% 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. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and revenue has declined or grown slowly.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 83
  • Transparency & Controls: 90
  • Accountability: 83
  • Sustainability: 49
  • Growth: 60

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Program expense ratio: 76.7%; rating input score 77
  • Fundraising efficiency: $4.17 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 13; 13th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 94.1%; rating input score 94; 26th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 78th percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 71.4%; rating input score 71; 18th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 7 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 100
    • 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: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -4.8%; rating input score 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 10.35; rating input score 92; 92nd percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.1; rating input score 35; 35th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 78; 78th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 0.2% per year; rating input score 100; 16th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: -3.8% per year; rating input score 0; 5th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 4.7% per year; rating input score 100; 34th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 76.7% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 15 of 21 board members independent · 7 of 7 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 4 filed program accomplishments · $1.1M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 24 people listed
  • Consistency: 29 of 31 current checks pass · 2 findings to review
  • Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
  • Filing history: 8 filing years from 2018 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 63 filed money-flow records
  • Related organizations: 63 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.

Key Signals

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

  • High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 13/100.
  • High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 19/100.
  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 35/100.