Washington · Nonprofit
Brightspark Early Learning Services
Brightspark Early Learning Services (Washington) receives grants from 57 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,253,361 to it, the largest being UNITED WAY OF KING COUNTY ($1,347,718). 34 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $41M
- Funders on record
- 57
- Grants received
- $5.3M
- Net assets
- $4.6M
What Brightspark Early Learning Services does
Mission
To nurture and sustain child-centered, antiracist early learning communities.Our work is to:1) Help families access high quality childcare and after-school care.2) Increase the availability of high-quality care through coaching and training ofchildcare providers.3) Advocate for childcare solutions that strengthen communities.BrightSpark understands the devastating effects of racism on our youngest learners, their families and communities. As a result, BrightSpark holds antiracism as a critical missional and value responsibility of each and every one of our staff.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
A young child, even an infant, is learning every moment of every day. A babys brain grows to 90% of its adult size during the first 3 years of life. Young children learn through observing and exploring their world, by using their senses, and most importantly, in nurturing relationships with their caregivers. We partner with families with young children to help them find and access high quality early learning programs and resources offered statewide. We also partner with early learning teachers who provide high quality care for all children in King and Pierce Counties.BrightSpark helps families find childcare that supports a child's unique needs, thefamilys values, and culture, and fits their work or other activities. Parents have many options for care, including care by a family member, care in the home by a family friend or nanny, licensed childcare, private preschools and Head Start or ECEAP. Staff at BrightSpark talk with the family about their needs and wishes for care; explain what quality care looks like, and then help in the childcare search. If the choice is licensed childcare, BrightSpark provides a customized list of options. Licensed childcare is expensive, so we help…
$37,293,290 spentof which $20,915,168 as grants$337,741 earned by the program100% of program spendingWorking with Families: Since 1990, BrightSpark has served over 200,000 families. BrightSpark has direct contact with families of all income levels and works with all types of childcare providers as well as informal caregivers. A strong partner with non-profits, government, foundations, businesses, and individuals, BrightSpark raises awareness about early learning, promotes best practices, and advocates for increased investments to ensure quality. BrightSpark empowers families to make the best possible choices for their childrens care. For FY 22-23, BrightSpark made a significant impact:- BrightSpark provided childcare referral and information by phone and online forover 16,774 families statewide- 854 families were supported through childcare subsidies and servicecoordination support in our Homeless Child Care Program. 83 families from King and Pierce Counties received a childcare subsidy from BrightSpark.- BrightSpark offers services in the familys home language, helps families find culturally relevant care, assists families that need weekend or after-hours care,or care for children with special needs, as well as afterschool care.- More than 7,417 FFN caregivers and parents…
Working with Child Care Providers and Capacity Building: Research confirms that for every $1 invested in quality early learning for all children, $7 or more is saved in costs of remedial learning, teen pregnancy, incarceration, and rehabilitation. As a result, we see more graduates, gainful employment, and more stable communities. BrightSpark supports all types of childcare professionals as they provide quality early learning experiences for children. We know that the role they play for children is significant and we are committed to providing answers to questions,coaching and technical assistance to improve the quality of the childcare program, and professional development opportunities to increase skills and knowledge through the Early Achievers Quality Rating Improvement System. From January June 2022, BrightSpark hosted 91 professional development trainings hosted by BrightSpark staff trainers for childcare providers in King and/or Pierce County. BrightSpark hosted aSpring Professional Development Institute for 143 childcare providers. This week-long virtual event helped our childcare providers obtain their required training hours.
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $37,293,290.
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 $6.2M to $11M (+73%).
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 90% · 2018 89% · 2019 88% · 2020 83% · 2021 96% · 2022 96% · 2023 96% · 2024 96% · 2025 97%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
98% of Brightspark Early Learning Services’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (21% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 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
Tafona Ervin
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2020 and FY2021, and between the FY2021 and FY2022 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 13 funders to 16 funders, grant income fell $592k → $173k.
11 of 57 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 33% 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 Brightspark Early Learning Services’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 57 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
Brightspark Early Learning Services has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 26% 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
69% 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 Brightspark Early Learning Services.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 59% · 2018 47% · 2019 48% · 2020 36% · 2021 41% · 2022 18% · 2023 14% — 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
40% of Brightspark Early Learning Services's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 60% 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
86% of Brightspark Early Learning Services's grant income comes from Washington funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.7M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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
Brightspark Early Learning Services has grown faster than three-quarters of the 2,297 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,297 human services nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding Brightspark Early Learning Services receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $11.7M on record.
- Department of Health and Human Services$11.7M
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like Brightspark Early Learning Services
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 Washington
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
91% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
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 Brightspark Early Learning Services: 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 Brightspark Early Learning Services?
- Brightspark Early Learning Services (Washington) receives grants from 57 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,253,361 to it, the largest being UNITED WAY OF KING COUNTY ($1,347,718). 34 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Brightspark Early Learning Services have?
- IRS filings report 57 organizations giving $5,253,361 in grants to Brightspark Early Learning Services, 34 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Brightspark Early Learning Services?
- UNITED WAY OF KING COUNTY is the largest funder on record, with $1,347,718 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Brightspark Early Learning Services find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Washington. 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 Brightspark Early Learning Services →
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 57 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