Pennsylvania · Nonprofit
CONNECTING CHAMPIONS
CONNECTING CHAMPIONS (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 33 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,639,468 to it, the largest being RICHARD KING MELLON FOUNDATION ($450,000). 15 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $742k
- Funders on record
- 33
- Grants received
- $1.6M
- Net assets
- $910k
What Connecting Champions does
Mission
To ask kids and young adults with cancer, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" & pair them with a mentor in that field who can help achieve a brighter future.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Connecting Champions asks kids and young adults with cancer, "what are you passionate about?" & connects them with a mentor for the cancer journey. Through our in-person and virtual friendship programs, we have partnerships with children's hospitals across the country. Our evidence-based, outcomes-driven approach helps kids and young adults better survive the cancer journey.
$370,723 spent$118,054 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $370,723.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2020, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2020, 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 2022 to 2023, from $573k to $784k (+37%).
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 1% · 2021 19% · 2022 0% · 2023 0%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
83% of CONNECTING CHAMPIONS’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (83% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 6 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
Sidney Kushner
Executive director
Board chair
Brett Fulesday
Board chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 10 funders, grant income rose $36k → $465k.
4 of 33 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 2% 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 CONNECTING CHAMPIONS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 33 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
CONNECTING CHAMPIONS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 27% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 56% · 2018 55% · 2019 31% · 2020 46% · 2021 41% · 2022 64% · 2023 43% — 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
25% of CONNECTING CHAMPIONS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 45% 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
90% of CONNECTING CHAMPIONS's grant income comes from Pennsylvania funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $31k 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
CONNECTING CHAMPIONS runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 3,734 youth development nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,734 youth development nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like CONNECTING CHAMPIONS
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 Pennsylvania
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
67% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
60%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 4 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CONNECTING CHAMPIONS: 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 CONNECTING CHAMPIONS?
- CONNECTING CHAMPIONS (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 33 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,639,468 to it, the largest being RICHARD KING MELLON FOUNDATION ($450,000). 15 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does CONNECTING CHAMPIONS have?
- IRS filings report 33 organizations giving $1,639,468 in grants to CONNECTING CHAMPIONS, 15 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CONNECTING CHAMPIONS?
- RICHARD KING MELLON FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $450,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CONNECTING CHAMPIONS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Pennsylvania. 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 Connecting Champions →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2020–2025), and the filings of 33 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