Texas · Nonprofit
BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT
BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT (Texas) receives grants from 10 organizations whose IRS filings report $187,730 to it, the largest being NETWORK FOR GOOD ($88,630). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 51% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $186k
- Funders on record
- 10
- Grants received
- $188k
- Net assets
- $148k
What Books for Development does
Mission
To provide improved education and literacy to developing communities in need
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Programs
Approximately 95,000 books were collected sorted boxed and shipped to Botswana to: 1 help establish and stock school libraries throughout the country; 2 help establish Botswanas first national childrens library in Gaborone. Several of the libraries receiving books were located in Gaborone Botswanas capital. In June 2025 a dozen volunteers visited Botswana distributing books holding seminars about the use of different books and helping to train 45 school representatives in school library administration in Gaborone and Maun Botswana. This training was supplemented by classes on How to Draw the Animals of Botswana using a booklet authored for this purpose. These classes complement our pro-literacy message by showing children how reading can teach useful skills. Books for Development President Mark Cotham met with he President of Botswana the Hon. Duma to discuss the importance of literacy and the role that donated books can play.
$16,870 spent47% of program spendingApproximately 40,000 books were collected sorted boxed and shipped to Kenya by our volunteers including a strong contingent of Kenyan expats from the Houston community. These books were in turn met by a group of four Books for Development volunteers who working with local representatives helped to distribute these books and establish 25 libraries. In addition to working with schools and communities to set up libraries our volunteers also helped promote literacy by conducting opening ceremonies at many of the libraries where entire communities turned out to see and welcome the new libraries.
$7,840 spent22% of program spendingApproximately 25,000 books were collected sorted boxed and shipped to Belize by our volunteers. These books were received by both the National Library of Belize as well as a Belizean non-profit organization Tek Time fi Read. Both of these organizations are significant promoters of literacy in Belize. Since Belizes national language is English our books meet an important need for reading materials. Our volunteers are working with these groups both to promote librarian training as well as to learn for possible replication in other places that we work how a group such as Tek Time fi Read is so successful in interesting local children in reading.
$10,809 spent30% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $35,519.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2022, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2022, 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 2024 to 2025, from $63k to $148k (+134%).
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.
87% of BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (100% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 4 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base held at 4 funders, grant income rose $17k → $26k.
4 of 10 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 51% 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 BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT’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
BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT leans on a few funders — its largest provides 47% 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
51% 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 BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 61% · 2018 100% · 2019 64% · 2020 60% · 2021 52% · 2022 60% · 2023 94% — 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
57% of BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 50% 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
51% of BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT'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 $92k that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from Texas funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $95k 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
BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 2,468 international nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,468 international nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT
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 Texas
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Public support
100%
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 BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT: 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 BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT?
- BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT (Texas) receives grants from 10 organizations whose IRS filings report $187,730 to it, the largest being NETWORK FOR GOOD ($88,630). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 51% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT have?
- IRS filings report 10 organizations giving $187,730 in grants to BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT?
- NETWORK FOR GOOD is the largest funder on record, with $88,630 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like BOOKS FOR DEVELOPMENT find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Texas. 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 Books for Development →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2022–2025), and the filings of 10 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