Illinois · Nonprofit
Austin Childcare Providers Network
Austin Childcare Providers Network (Illinois) receives grants from 15 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,377,373 to it, the largest being A Better Chicago ($475,000). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $492k
- Funders on record
- 15
- Grants received
- $1.4M
- Net assets
- $467k
What Austin Childcare Providers Network does
Mission
ACPN empowers early childcare providers in Austin to create engaging early learning environments and develop sustainable businesses.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
101 Early Learning - ACPN has recognized the importance of providing Network members with information, education, and support. We have identified challenges and barriers for our members attaining their degrees. Our goals are to collaborate and partner with City Colleges and other Community Based Organizations (CBO) to leverage programs and resources to support providers. We have established a partnership with Malcolm X to identify the direction of the early childhood field and what are the trends in terms of credentials and degrees. Our project supports providers with resources and assistance in collecting documentation for: applying for financial aid, working with advisors, completing a City College application, and registering for coursework. We also advocate for simplifying the processes and procedures for community members to attain higher education.
$366,010 spent$7,524 earned by the program100% of program spending102 Kindergarten Initiative - The C2K pilot promotes a collaboration funded by the Governor's Office of Early Childhood Development (GOECD) to develop a model that aligns training, curriculum, and assessments from childcare programs (with children ages 3-4), preschool programs and kindergarten classes. The C2K grant supports planning and implementation to: Develop partnerships that ensure that childcare providers, CPS State Pre-K and kindergarten teachers would be able to partner to accomplish the grant's goal of ensuring more Austin children successfully transition to kindergarten. Design strategies that promote shared training among State-PreK, kindergarten teachers and childcare owners and to collaborate on shared curriculum with a focus on child appropriate practices, training on the Illinois Kindergarten Individual Development Survey (KIDS), culturally responsive and trauma informed practices, the Pyramid model, assessments, and data collection. Create strategies to engage families of students enrolled in the pilot to strengthen school and home connections and ensure effective kindergarten transitions.
ExceleRate Pilot - The Illinois ExceleRate system incentivizes childcare programs to work on continuous quality improvement of programs, by directors and program staff increasing their higher education credentials/degrees and conducting program self-assessments. ACPN has initiated a pilot to work with a cohort of ten providers to increase their ExceleRate level from Bronze to Silver. The pilot will work on individualizing training and coaching of each provider to identify areas of improvement, to create an individual/program plan that works on the areas of improvement and provide training and coaching to support added program quality standards. The pilot will work with the cohort for a year.These three initiatives target the early childhood providers in our community to increase their knowledge and skills. These three initiatives address aspects of the early childhood workforce: The AECC project provides opportunities for individual childcare providers to complete their GED and/or begin their higher education journey to attain an Associate degree or Infant/Toddler credential. The ExceleRate Pilot works on improving the quality of the community's early childcare programs. The C2K…
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $366,010.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 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 2020 to 2021, from $336k to $470k (+40%).
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: 2017 21% · 2018 24% · 2021 49% · 2022 42% · 2023 46% · 2024 56% · 2025 48%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
98% of Austin Childcare Providers Network’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (91% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 9 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
Ruth Kimble
Executive Director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 5 funders, grant income rose $43k → $335k.
5 of 15 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 38% 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: $422k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Austin Coming Together). These are real filings, and they are not money Austin Childcare Providers Network raised.
From the IRS filings of Austin Childcare Providers Network’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 14 of 15 funders by total. 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
Austin Childcare Providers Network leans on a few funders — its largest provides 34% of grant income and the top three 88%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
95% 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 Austin Childcare Providers Network.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 89% · 2018 100% · 2020 42% · 2021 53% · 2022 47% · 2023 45% — diversifying over time.
“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.
How long its funders stay
29% of Austin Childcare Providers Network's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 53% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
96% of Austin Childcare Providers Network's grant income comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $522k 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
Austin Childcare Providers Network runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 13,917 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 13,917 human services nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like Austin Childcare Providers Network
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 Illinois
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
80% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
88%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Austin Childcare Providers Network: 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 Austin Childcare Providers Network?
- Austin Childcare Providers Network (Illinois) receives grants from 15 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,377,373 to it, the largest being A Better Chicago ($475,000). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Austin Childcare Providers Network have?
- IRS filings report 15 organizations giving $1,377,373 in grants to Austin Childcare Providers Network, 8 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Austin Childcare Providers Network?
- A Better Chicago is the largest funder on record, with $475,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Austin Childcare Providers Network find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Illinois. 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 Austin Childcare Providers Network →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 15 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing