Washington · Nonprofit
CHILD'S PLAY
CHILD'S PLAY (Washington) receives grants from 84 organizations whose IRS filings report $9,544,239 to it, the largest being PAYPAL CHARITABLE GIVING FUND ($5,208,658). 41 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 86% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.6M
- Funders on record
- 84
- Grants received
- $9.5M
- Net assets
- $15M
What Child's Play does
Mission
Child's Play seeks to improve the lives of children and teens in pediatric hospitals and other child welfare facilities through the kindness and generosity of the gamer community and the power of play.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Started by the founders of penny arcade, inc., mike krahulik and jerry holkins in 2003 uniting the gaming community and highlighting the good in the industry when gamers give back! Focusing on helping improve the patient experience, Child's Play works closely with child life departments to understand their technology needs, provide solutions to gaming roadblocks and support their hospitals program with in-kind and cash contributions. We support more than 200 hospitals and impact more than 1 million kids each year.
$3,490,399 spentof which $2,922,378 as grants100% of program spendingIn recent years, Child's Play has heavily focused on gaming and technology specialists. These positions inside children's hospitals have proven to enhance the patients experience while creating an environment that is inclusive around gaming. These technology specialists promote immersive technology such as augmented and virtual reality to help provide distraction during procedures. This can help kids get home sooner and heal quicker. Child's Play has funded 53 of these positions to date through capacity building grants and continues to look for additional donor/sponsor support to grow this program. These grants allow the hospital to support this new position in 2 to 3 years.
We know not all clinicians and caretakers in and outside the hospital setting are gamers. We want to meet people where they are at and show them the benefits of gaming and power of play. That's why Child's Play created the therapeutic video game guide a tool to recommend video games for children based on their symptoms. The games ae curated by researchers at circana group, l.p., a market-leading video game research firm, in collaboration with mental health researchers at ucsd. This guide was designed as a quick reference to help caretakers quickly select games for their patients.
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $3,490,399.
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 $12M to $14M (+17%).
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: 2022 2%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
88% of CHILD'S PLAY’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (51% 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.
Chief executive
Travis Eriksen
Executive director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 12 funders to 34 funders, grant income fell $1.3M → $1.1M.
19 of 84 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 86% 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 CHILD'S PLAY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 84 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
CHILD'S PLAY leans on a few funders — its largest provides 55% of grant income and the top three 77%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
93% 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 CHILD'S PLAY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 93% · 2018 87% · 2019 83% · 2020 62% · 2021 42% · 2022 23% · 2023 31% — 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
39% of CHILD'S PLAY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 49% 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 CHILD'S PLAY'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 $1.3M that is directly attributable, 60% of it comes from funders outside Washington, across 26 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $8.2M arriving through sponsors registered in 14 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
CHILD'S PLAY is better cushioned than half of the 5,002 health nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 5,002 health nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like CHILD'S PLAY
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
84% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
84%
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 CHILD'S PLAY: 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 CHILD'S PLAY?
- CHILD'S PLAY (Washington) receives grants from 84 organizations whose IRS filings report $9,544,239 to it, the largest being PAYPAL CHARITABLE GIVING FUND ($5,208,658). 41 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 86% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does CHILD'S PLAY have?
- IRS filings report 84 organizations giving $9,544,239 in grants to CHILD'S PLAY, 41 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CHILD'S PLAY?
- PAYPAL CHARITABLE GIVING FUND is the largest funder on record, with $5,208,658 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CHILD'S PLAY 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.
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 84 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