New York · Nonprofit
ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS
ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS (New York) receives grants from 2 organizations whose IRS filings report $17,500 to it, the largest being THE GOLDMAN SACHS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($10,000). 0 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 57% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $138M
- Funders on record
- 2
- Grants received
- $18k
- Net assets
- $22M
What Ascend Charter Schools does
Mission
Ascend Charter Schools' (the "school") mission is to equip every student with the knowledge, confidence, and character to succeed in college and beyond. The school will span kindergarten through the 12th grade at maturity. From the earliest grades, students will steadily build a strong foundation of learning habits, critical thinking skills, and knowledge; excel academically in the middle and high school, mastering high-level math and science; and graduate as confident young adults, prepared to succeed as college students, as citizens, and as leaders in their chosen fields.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Ascend Charter Schools is a network of k-12 public charter schools serving 5,208 students in 17 schools across brooklyn, new york's most populous borough. Our undertaking is to lead our students on a great intellectual adventure, provide them with an exceptional college preparatory education, and place them firmly on the path to success in college and beyond.
$115,284,502 spent$126,995,035 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $115,284,502.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2018, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2018, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $56M to $425M (+655%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2018 6% · 2019 7% · 2020 6% · 2021 6% · 2022 12% · 2023 12% · 2024 10% · 2025 6%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
7% of ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (14% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Maryann Li
CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2024 and FY2025 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
Grant support over time, funder by funder — shade shows the grant size each year.
1 of 2 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 57% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $4.9M from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Ascend Learning Inc). These are real filings, and they are not money ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS raised.
From the IRS filings of ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS leans on a few funders — its largest provides 57% of grant income and the top three 100%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
100% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Where its funders are
57% of ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $8k that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from funders outside New York, across 1 state.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $10k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 679 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 679 education nonprofits over $100M, FY2025
Organizations like ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In New York
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
83% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS?
- ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS (New York) receives grants from 2 organizations whose IRS filings report $17,500 to it, the largest being THE GOLDMAN SACHS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($10,000). 0 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 57% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS have?
- IRS filings report 2 organizations giving $17,500 in grants to ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS.
- Who is the largest funder of ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS?
- THE GOLDMAN SACHS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $10,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOLS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in New York. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Ascend Charter Schools →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2018–2025), and the filings of 2 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing