Wisconsin Lutheran College
Legal name: Wisconsin Lutheran College Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 237179639
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2011–2024
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-T 2024
- Location
- Milwaukee, WI, USA
- Phone
- 4144438800
- Rating
- 81
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Affiliation
- Christianity
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $56,348,705
- Expenses
- $55,356,661
- Assets
- $137,959,501
- Liabilities
- $57,785,673
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
47 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- DR DANIEL JOHNSON (PRESIDENT)
Highest reported compensation
- DR DANIEL JOHNSON (PRESIDENT): $273,744 total reported compensation
- DR JOHN KOLANDER (PROVOST): $168,531 total reported compensation
- RICH MANNISTO THRU 033125 (VP DEVELOPMENT): $149,409 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Wisconsin Lutheran College (WLC) is a Lutheran liberal arts college for Christian men and women, committed to providing teaching, scholarship, and service rooted in Holy Scripture, promoting spiritual growth, and preparing students for lives of Christian leadership. Qualifications include a bachelor's degree in leadership, education, business, ministry, communication, nonprofit management, or a related field; demonstrated experience in program coordination, leadership development, coaching, education, student services, nonprofit work, or related areas; ability to work collaboratively with students, faculty, staff, donors, and community stakeholders; and demonstrated ability to facilitate workshops, presentations, and group discussions. Candidates for this part-time, in-person position must be able to perform responsibilities in a manner consistent with the mission and values of the...
What it reported doing in 2024
Instruction and academic support: Wisconsin lutheran college offers nationally ranked academic programs in a christian environment. Students participate in small classes and receive one-on-one mentoring from professors. Wlc does not use teaching assistants. The college prepares nearly 1,100 traditional undergraduate and graduate students to be christian servant leaders in their chosen academic fields. Traditional undergraduate students can choose to major or minor in various programs, including business, nursing, education, sport and exercise science, and biology. Wlc also offers 11 pre-professional programs, including athletic training, chiropractic, occupational therapy, law, optometry, medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy, veterinary, engineering, and dental. The college has forged partnerships with renowned colleges and universities across the country to provide dual-degree opportunities for students. Dual-degree affiliations allow students to earn two degrees: an undergraduate degree from wlc and a graduate degree from another college or university. Many programs offer students the ability to condense their time in school (often a year or more), saving them money on tuition costs and allowing them to enter the workplace sooner. The dual-degree programs at wlc include athletic training, chiropractic care, dentistry, engineering, exercise physiology, law, occupational therapy, optometry, osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy, podiatry, public health, and respiratory care.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 75% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 63% for direct work, and 37% for grants.
- 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. The filing reports few safeguards for money sent abroad and fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 84
- Transparency & Controls: 70
- Accountability: 95
- Sustainability: 51
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 91.2%; rating input score 91
- Program expense ratio: 89.6%; rating input score 90
- Fundraising efficiency: $6.78 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 31; 31st 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: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Pass
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Scored; rating input score 0
- Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 77th 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; 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: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Fail
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 1.8%; rating input score 41; 41st percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 2.49; rating input score 70; 70th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.42; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 2.2%; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 3.2% per year; rating input score 100; 24th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 2.5% per year; rating input score 100; 18th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 2.4% per year; rating input score 100; 17th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 8 programs and campaigns described on the official site
- Where the money goes: 91.2% of revenue deployed · 89.6% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 37 of 37 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $49.6M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $274K · 47 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Highest-paid contractors: 5 contractors listed · $5.6M reported
- Consistency: 39 of 39 current checks pass
- Schedules: 13 filed schedules · includes major donors, foreign activity, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 14 filing years from 2011 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 9 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.
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.
- High — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight scored 0/100.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 31/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 41/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Form 990 shared with the board not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 43/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 51/100.
- High — Grant Readiness: Federal audit findings: this organization reported findings in its latest federal Single Audit.