New York · Nonprofit
Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn
Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn (New York) receives grants from 27 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,593,662 to it, the largest being READY COLORADO ($591,000). 15 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $787k
- Funders on record
- 27
- Grants received
- $1.6M
- Net assets
- $320k
What Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn does
Mission
The organization's mission is to establish sustainability as an integral part of every child's PreK-12 learning experience. By integrating sustainability across subjects and grades, we can equip students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will help lead to a sustainable future for everyone. CELF programs use sustainability as an integrating context for teaching and learning, decision-making, civic engagement, community partnerships and campus practices. The lens of sustainability transforms curriculum, school operations, physical surroundings and school-community activities and fosters the cultivation of engaged citizens.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Summer Institutes:Multi-day immersive professional development programs for K-12 educators that explore the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainability, and ways of bringing these concepts to life in classrooms through hands-on STEAM activities, case studies, and fieldwork. The Institutes build practical curriculum integration of stewardship perspectives, skills and action to the restoration, rebuilding, and reconnecting of human communities, environmental stewardship and civic life. Participants leave with resources for implementing interdisciplinary, place-based, and inquiry-driven sustainability projects, and receive implementation support from CELF throughout the academic year.
$39,662 spent6% of program spendingCivic ScienceCivic Science is a semester- or year-long program that engages educators and students in project-based STEAM learning outside of the classroom. Using our Inquiry-to-Action framework, this program trains teachers to engage students in hands-on learning to identify, analyze, and solve real-world environmental issues that impact their school communities. Exploring cross-curricular inquiry pathways such as air and water quality, biodiversity, waste, and infrastructure, students visit local green spaces to collect data, develop action plans, and share findings and solutions with field experts and decision-makers during our culminating annual Student Symposium events.
$439,309 spent71% of program spendingProfessional development and TrainingThe concepts of sustainability are universal, but every district and school starts from a different place in implementing sustainability education. CELF customized professional development (PD) helps schools infuse curriculum and school culture with education for a sustainable future. PD services include: gap analyses of curriculum; on-site Education for Sustainability training and resources (specific to grade level and school or district needs and interests); and review of facilities green infrastructure improvements to help infuse projects into curriculum. Through half-day workshops to multi-year engagements, we provide a framework for integrating sustainability concepts into curricula, community, and culture, helping teachers connect students to place-based learning opportunities in the community, create whole-school action plans, and activate student civic engagement.Green Careers Speaker SeriesAs student interest in sustainability grows, CELF helps students see how their interests and community concerns can be channeled into potential career pathways by connecting them with professionals working in a wide array of sustainability focused…
$140,733 spent$11,100 earned by the program23% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $619,704.
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 2018 to 2019, from $103k to $326k (+215%).
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: 2020 14% · 2021 33% · 2025 7%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (57% 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
Tara Stafford Ocansey
Executive Director
Board chair
Daniel Metzger
Chairperson
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2021 and FY2022 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 11 funders, grant income rose $38k → $287k.
11 of 27 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 34% 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 Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn’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
Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn leans on a few funders — its largest provides 37% of grant income and the top three 62%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
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 Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 97% · 2018 91% · 2019 42% · 2020 81% · 2021 62% · 2022 19% · 2023 26% — 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
55% of Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 56% 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
Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn draws 99% of its grant income from funders outside New York, across 9 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $544k arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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
Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn has grown faster than half of the 16,849 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 16,849 education nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Government funding Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $426k on record.
- Environmental Protection Agency$426k
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 Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn
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 New York
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
77% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
75%
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 Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn: 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 Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn?
- Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn (New York) receives grants from 27 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,593,662 to it, the largest being READY COLORADO ($591,000). 15 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn have?
- IRS filings report 27 organizations giving $1,593,662 in grants to Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn, 15 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn?
- READY COLORADO is the largest funder on record, with $591,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in New York. 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 Children's Enviromental Literacy Fdn →
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 27 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