Alaska · Nonprofit
BEST BEGINNINGS
BEST BEGINNINGS (Alaska) receives grants from 19 organizations whose IRS filings report $801,743 to it, the largest being NETWORK FOR GOOD ($157,577). 12 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 52% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $675k
- Funders on record
- 19
- Grants received
- $802k
- Net assets
- $156k
What Best Beginnings does
Mission
A public-private partnership that mobilizes people and resources to ensure all alaska children begin school ready to succeed.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Literacy and language development - Best Beginnings is the statewide sponsor of imagination library in alaska and provides training, technical assistance, and some funding to affiliates in alaska.
$493,629 spentof which $101,100 as grants$612 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $493,629.
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 2023 to 2024, from $321k to $221k (−31%).
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 53% · 2018 58% · 2019 55% · 2020 72% · 2021 76% · 2022 67% · 2023 62% · 2024 87% · 2025 84%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
112% of BEST BEGINNINGS’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (87% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 9 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.
Board chair
Cheri Lipps
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 6 funders to 5 funders, grant income fell $118k → $64k.
6 of 19 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 52% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of BEST BEGINNINGS’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
BEST BEGINNINGS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 20% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
70% 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 BEST BEGINNINGS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 52% · 2018 39% · 2019 28% · 2020 23% · 2021 35% · 2022 35% · 2023 80% — growing more concentrated.
“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
43% of BEST BEGINNINGS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 63% 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
52% of BEST BEGINNINGS'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 $385k that is directly attributable, 85% of it comes from Alaska funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $417k arriving through sponsors registered in 4 states 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
BEST BEGINNINGS receives grants from 19 organizations whose IRS filings report $802k to it.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 4,505 philanthropy nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like BEST BEGINNINGS
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 Alaska
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
71% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for BEST BEGINNINGS: 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 BEST BEGINNINGS?
- BEST BEGINNINGS (Alaska) receives grants from 19 organizations whose IRS filings report $801,743 to it, the largest being NETWORK FOR GOOD ($157,577). 12 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 52% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does BEST BEGINNINGS have?
- IRS filings report 19 organizations giving $801,743 in grants to BEST BEGINNINGS, 12 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of BEST BEGINNINGS?
- NETWORK FOR GOOD is the largest funder on record, with $157,577 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like BEST BEGINNINGS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Alaska. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
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 19 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