Lutheran Services Carolinas recently accepted the 2023 audit report from its external, independent auditors, another unmodified (clean) opinion! It is always interesting to look back at the last year and years to see where we’ve been and to see trends for the future. A recent press release shared some of the high-level information, but it’s interesting to get a bit more detail.
LSC’s total assets have grown to $420,600,700, almost 11% over the previous year. Our PACE program has doubled its assets. If you aren’t up to speed on PACE, you can find more than you want at www.npaonline.org. We love that model as another senior services opportunity and are now sponsors of four different PACE programs.
LSC’s revenue has risen to over $201 million. I remember the first year in this job our annual revenue budget was $21 million. Our strong volunteer Board of Trustees has led us through a strategic planning process that keeps us all focused on our vision/mission/values and a comprehensive strategic plan for quality and growth.
I am amazed at how much LSC continues to grow, not for growth’s sake but for the ministry provided. It costs a lot to operate our ministry. Over 50% of our expenses last year were salaries and benefits, $103,324,992! It takes a lot of money to take care of a lot of people. We bought over $4.7 million worth of food, and our electric bill was over $1.7 million!
Each year at audit time, we are eager to learn the final percentage of administrative expense compared to total expense. We want to be lean and mean, to put our money in ministry, not in administration. But we have to have enough administration to do the job right. This year our administrative cost was 11.3%. That is a solid, respectable number for a nonprofit. I have always heard anything under 15% is very reasonable.
LSC is a strong, growing nonprofit. We try to balance mission and business to continue to serve across the Carolinas. It’s The LSC Way.