Texas · Nonprofit
EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS
EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS (Texas) receives grants from 97 organizations whose IRS filings report $20,092,099 to it, the largest being THE DALLAS FOUNDATION ($11,308,575). 57 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 68% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.7M
- Funders on record
- 97
- Grants received
- $20M
- Net assets
- $7.5M
What Educational First Steps does
Mission
Educational First Steps (EFS) creates and supports high-quality early learning environments that ignite the minds of children from birth to age five in low income and historically oppressed communities.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
EFS PROVIDED: WEEKLY VIRTUAL OR ON-SITE MENTORING AND CONSULTING, SCHOLARSHIPS TOWARD COURSES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION, BOOKS, SUPPLIES, FIELD TRIPS, PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT, ENRICHMENT PROGRAMS IN ART, MUSIC, MATH AND SCIENCE, AND TARGETED FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO IMPROVE PROGRAMS AND FACILITIES.Educational First Steps presently serves 4,869 children from birth to age five of which 3,407 are in quality and/or accredited learning environments, 840 teachers and educators, 102 independently owned-operated partner centers, and 108 licensed and/or registered home-based providers across 6 counties in North Texas. The children we impact are 49% African American, 30% Latino, 12% Caucasian, 3% Asian, and 6% identifying as other. EFS also provides professional development, onsite mentoring, and classroom instruction to teachers and educators in 14 school districts in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Johnson, Denton, and Grayson Counties. These caregivers, almost exclusively women of color, live in the same neighborhoods as the children they teach, typically have a GED or high school diploma, and are paid minimum wage.
$2,497,018 spent$35,000 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2023 Form 990. Program spending in total: $2,497,018.
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 $8.0M to $10.0M (+25%).
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.
97% of EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (48% 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.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2024 and FY2025 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 13 funders to 44 funders, grant income rose $1.7M → $2.5M.
19 of 97 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 68% 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 EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 97 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
EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS leans on a few funders — its largest provides 56% of grant income and the top three 66%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder 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 EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 57% · 2018 65% · 2019 83% · 2020 53% · 2021 69% · 2022 66% · 2023 41% — 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
33% of EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS'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
68% of EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS'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 $6.3M that is directly attributable, 92% of it comes from Texas funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $14M arriving through sponsors registered in 13 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
EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS is better cushioned than half of the 9,615 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,615 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS
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
69% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
88%
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 EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS: 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 EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS?
- EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS (Texas) receives grants from 97 organizations whose IRS filings report $20,092,099 to it, the largest being THE DALLAS FOUNDATION ($11,308,575). 57 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 68% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS have?
- IRS filings report 97 organizations giving $20,092,099 in grants to EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS, 57 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS?
- THE DALLAS FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $11,308,575 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like EDUCATIONAL FIRST STEPS 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.
Play a game about who funds Educational First Steps →
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 97 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