Charity profile · Historical source record

Merit School of Music

EIN 36-3028768Education Illinois Mid-sized

Historical collection: May 2019 · Rating details mostly from 2017. Source & context

The mission

What this organization describes

Making music . . .building lives

Merit School of Music provides high-quality music education to students in metropolitan Chicago. Its primary goals are to help young people achieve their full musical potential, to remove economic barriers to participation, and to stimulate personal and educational growth through music. Merit offers a full range of music programming for children, ages newborn to 18 years, including early childhood classes, beginning, intermediate and advanced instrumental and vocal group instruction, private lessons, theory classes, ensembles and musical theatre. Merit's classes are offered at dozens of sites throughout Chicago and Northwest Indiana. This year, the School will reach nearly 5,000 young people throughout Chicagoland.

Mission and tagline reproduced from the source record.

Historical scorecard

Three perspectives. One record.

90.31Overall score
out of 100

86.90Financial score
out of 100

96.00Accountability & transparency
out of 100

These are the dataset’s historical numeric fields, not a current rating or a new DonorAPI.com assessment. Read the score context ↗

Financial context

Revenue, expenses, and composition

Total revenue · USD$6,490,989

Total expenses · USD$6,758,072

Program expenses

$5,386,183.38 recorded amount

79.7%

Fundraising expenses

$560,919.98 recorded amount

8.3%

Administrative expenses

$797,452.50 recorded amount

11.8%

Fundraising efficiency: $0.19 spent per $1 raised in donations, as defined in the source.

Expense shares are displayed as percentages. Component amounts in this collection match total expenses multiplied by the source ratios; rounding can leave a small difference from the total. The source does not supply a row-specific fiscal year. Field definitions ↗

Historical leadership record

The leadership information supplied

Recorded leader: Charles Grode
Recorded compensation: $175,050.00
Recorded compensation percentage: 2.59%

These fields do not establish the current officeholder or current compensation. The metadata does not specify the denominator of the leader compensation percentage. Read with context ↗

Inspect all 23 original source fields

Exact source strings are retained below, including numeric precision. A blank value is marked as not reported; zero remains zero.

All 23 original fields for Merit School of Music
Source field	Original source value
`ascore` Accountability & transparency score	96.0
`category` Category	Education
`description` Mission & description	Merit School of Music provides high-quality music education to students in metropolitan Chicago. Its primary goals are to help young people achieve their full musical potential, to remove economic barriers to participation, and to stimulate personal and educational growth through music. Merit offers a full range of music programming for children, ages newborn to 18 years, including early childhood classes, beginning, intermediate and advanced instrumental and vocal group instruction, private lessons, theory classes, ensembles and musical theatre. Merit's classes are offered at dozens of sites throughout Chicago and Northwest Indiana. This year, the School will reach nearly 5,000 young people throughout Chicagoland.
`ein` EIN	36-3028768
`tot_exp` Total expenses	6758072.0
`admin_exp_p` Administrative expense fraction	0.11800000000000001
`fund_eff` Fundraising efficiency ($ per $1 raised)	0.19
`fund_exp_p` Fundraising expense fraction	0.083
`program_exp_p` Program expense fraction	0.797
`fscore` Financial score	86.9
`leader` Recorded leader	Charles Grode
`leader_comp` Recorded leader compensation	175050.0
`leader_comp_p` Recorded leader compensation fraction	0.0259
`motto` Tagline	Making music . . .building lives
`name` Charity name	Merit School of Music
`tot_rev` Total revenue	6490989.0
`score` Overall score	90.31
`state` State code	IL
`subcategory` Subcategory	Youth Education Programs and Services
`size` Source size label	mid
`program_exp` Program expenses	5386183.384000001
`fund_exp` Fundraising expenses	560919.976
`admin_exp` Administrative expenses	797452.496

Identity & classification

At a glance

EIN: 36-3028768
Source category: Education
Source subcategory: Youth Education Programs and Services
Recorded location: Illinois (IL)
Expense-based size: Mid-sized
$3.5M–$13.5M in total expenses · source label: mid

Explore alongside

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Linked by source subcategory, prioritizing the same recorded state. Not a recommendation or ranking.

A useful next step

Keep the context.

Check current organizational information separately before making a giving decision. This record does not include an official website, donation URL, or current eligibility field.

Giving research guide ↗

Source: Charity Navigator Scores Expenses Dataset, version 1, attributed to katyjqian on Kaggle. Collection: May 2019; rating details mostly from 2017. Read attribution, scope, and reuse notes.