Challenger Center for Space Science Education

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.

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 71% · 2018 68% · 2019 62% · 2020 69% · 2021 27% · 2022 32% · 2023 32% · 2024 31%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 6 funders, grant income rose $111k → $329k.

7 of 17 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 92% 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 Challenger Center for Space Science Education’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

Challenger Center for Space Science Education leans on a few funders — its largest provides 49% of grant income and the top three 80%; half comes from just 2 funders.

92% 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 Challenger Center for Space Science Education.

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 86% · 2018 74% · 2019 62% · 2020 49% · 2021 49% · 2022 41% · 2023 2% — 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

50% of Challenger Center for Space Science Education's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 59% 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

92% of Challenger Center for Space Science Education'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 $49k that is directly attributable, 80% of it comes from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 8 states.

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $561k arriving through sponsors registered in 6 statesis 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.