Massachusetts · Nonprofit
COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC
COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC (Massachusetts) receives grants from 40 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,290,784 to it, the largest being NEIGHBORHOOD REINVESTMENT CORPORATION ($2,690,000). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $5.8M
- Funders on record
- 40
- Grants received
- $6.3M
- Net assets
- $26M
What Coalition for a Better Acre Inc does
Mission
Coalition for a better acre (cba) is dedicated to creating stable neighborhoods and improving the quality of life for residents through affordable housing development, community engagement, and supportive programs.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Cba develops affordable housing to stabilize neighborhoods in lowell, haverhill, and dracut. Since 1982, cba has developed 556 residential units housing more than 1,100 people and consisting of 18 different buildings/sites in lowell, haverhill, and dracut. Since 1982, cba has invested more than $189 million in developing stable neighborhoods in these communities. Our landmark development project, north canal, involved taking ownership of the failing 267-unit hud-owned complex in 1989. It was the first community takeover of an expiring use hud property in the united states and would otherwise have displaced the low-income tenants residing there. North canal is now slated for extensive renovation and expansion over the next decade.
$2,184,653 spent$1,649,863 earned by the program100% of program spendingCba operates the acre's only food pantry, serving an average of 500 acre households each month, providing culturally appropriate food and spices in a grocery store environment. The pantry made over 699 home deliveries to the elderly and disabled in the first half of 2025 alone. Cba also provides complete thanksgiving turkey dinners to acre residents, with plans to distribute 350 each november.
Cba's yes! Program provides 80 youths ages 5 to 13 participate in our free yes! (youth educational success) program, enjoying year-round exposure to enrichment and learning activities. After school, kids receive homework and academic support, career exploration, and time to enjoy the outdoors. Each day ends with a healthy meal cooked in the cba kitchen. During school vacations and summer break, youth enjoy field trips to museums, parks, and historic sites, helping to close the experience gap between low-income youths and their higher-income peers. We created yes! At the request of working parents living in cba housing who lacked access to affordable after-school care within walking distance of home. Parents report feeling confident their children are receiving resources demonstrating the many pathways to a bright and successful future while the parents are at work.
Cba hosts events that foster neighborhood engagement, including acre festival and resource fair, where 50 organizations help link families to resources available throughout lowell; acre clean-up, where up to 30 teams work side by side to beautify and celebrate the community; national night out, in collaboration with the lowell housing authority, the bike connector, and first responders. And cba's annual meeting each october is planned entirely by members, who decide on the theme, decor, food, and entertainment.
Cba promotes voter participation in response to concerns that voter turnout in the acre is consistently the lowest among lowell's districts, cba has redoubled its efforts to educate and explain, inform, and encourage residents to vote. This includes door knocking, tabling at community events, and our ever-popular candidating event, modeled after speed dating, where candidates move from table to table with five minutes to field questions, explain their platforms, and encourage participants to vote.
Cba offers free basic english instruction during the day and is plans to an evening option in 2026. Esol reduces isolation and provides basic english proficiency to look for jobs, navigate public transportation, and talk to children's teachers. It also provides the skills needed for students to go on to more intensive esol instruction, but which have long waiting lists.
The 6 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,184,653.
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 2021 to 2022, from $31M to $36M (+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.
44% of COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (39% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 8 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
Sixto Dejesus
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 8 funders to 18 funders, grant income rose $442k → $713k.
5 of 40 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 28% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $669k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Acre Triangle Community Development Corporation). These are real filings, and they are not money COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC raised.
From the IRS filings of COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 40 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
COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 43% of grant income and the top three 70%; 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 COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 62% · 2018 78% · 2019 80% · 2020 51% · 2021 42% · 2022 41% · 2023 44% — 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 COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 53% 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
COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC draws 61% of its grant income from funders outside Massachusetts, across 4 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.8M 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
COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 3,978 housing & shelter nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,978 housing & shelter nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $526k on record.
- (PP) STATE AID/POL SUB$526k
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 COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC
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 Massachusetts
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
50% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
48%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 31 related entities
- Cba Affordable Housing LLC · disregarded
- Acre Triangle Community Development Corporation · exempt
- Moody Street Center Limited Partnership · partnership
- New North Canal LLC · partnership
- Liberty Square Housing Limited Partnership · partnership
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC: 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 COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC?
- COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC (Massachusetts) receives grants from 40 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,290,784 to it, the largest being NEIGHBORHOOD REINVESTMENT CORPORATION ($2,690,000). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC have?
- IRS filings report 40 organizations giving $6,290,784 in grants to COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC, 21 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC?
- NEIGHBORHOOD REINVESTMENT CORPORATION is the largest funder on record, with $2,690,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Massachusetts. 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 Coalition for a Better Acre →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 40 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