Texas · Nonprofit
Collaborative for Children
Collaborative for Children (Texas) receives grants from 51 organizations whose IRS filings report $23,737,971 to it, the largest being Save The Children Federation Inc ($5,377,900). 30 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $4.1M
- Funders on record
- 51
- Grants received
- $24M
- Net assets
- $3.5M
What Collaborative for Children does
Mission
The mission of Collaborative for Children is to meaningfully improve the quality of early childhood education and care for Greater Houston's children through those most influential in their lives.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Provider Engagement programs support and develop child care and early education professionals through one-on-one consulting, training, and mentoring; materials and equipment; scholarships for professional development conferences; and wage enhancement programs that reward teachers for earning higher educational credentials.
$2,908,909 spentof which $445,948 as grants69% of program spendingCommunity Engagement programs participate in partnerships to promote healthy child development and strengthen laws and regulations impacting young children. Early childhood education is promoted as a high-priority public policy issue in our region, which needs adequate support to deliver quality programs for parents, children, and teachers.
$786,386 spentof which $70,441 as grants19% of program spendingFamily Engagement programs provide families with information, resources, and support to launch their children toward academic and life success by providing parent education classes, one-on-one parent coaching, and referrals for early education programs, after-school programs, as well as programs that have received training on meeting the needs of children with different abilities.
$506,214 spentof which $19,499 as grants12% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $4,201,509.
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 2019 to 2020, from $3.4M to $5.7M (+69%).
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 51% · 2018 41% · 2019 75% · 2020 74% · 2021 77% · 2022 68% · 2023 35% · 2024 53% · 2025 59%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
97% of Collaborative for Children’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (81% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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
Melianie J Johnson
President & CEO
Board chair
Jennifer Klein Strauss
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 14 funders to 22 funders, grant income rose $1.9M → $4.8M.
12 of 51 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 31% 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 Collaborative for Children’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 51 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
Collaborative for Children has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 23% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
72% 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 Collaborative for Children.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 42% · 2018 61% · 2019 39% · 2020 24% · 2021 36% · 2022 30% · 2023 63% — growing more concentrated.
“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
56% of Collaborative for Children'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
59% of Collaborative for Children's grant income comes from Texas funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $7.4M 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
Collaborative for Children is better cushioned than half of the 7,349 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 7,349 human services nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Collaborative for Children
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 Texas
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
74% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
97%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Collaborative for Children: 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 Collaborative for Children?
- Collaborative for Children (Texas) receives grants from 51 organizations whose IRS filings report $23,737,971 to it, the largest being Save The Children Federation Inc ($5,377,900). 30 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Collaborative for Children have?
- IRS filings report 51 organizations giving $23,737,971 in grants to Collaborative for Children, 30 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Collaborative for Children?
- Save The Children Federation Inc is the largest funder on record, with $5,377,900 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Collaborative for Children find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Texas. 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 51 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