California · Nonprofit
HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS
HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS (California) receives grants from 57 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,775,305 to it, the largest being CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($1,025,100). 32 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $1.1M
- Funders on record
- 57
- Grants received
- $3.8M
- Net assets
- $1.2M
What Happy Trails for Kids does
Mission
To provide children in foster care with enriching outdoor adventures, invaluable mentorships, and a year round community, where youth are given opportunities to develop leadership skills and prepare for life after foster care. Happy Trails for Kids believes that fostering continuity and belonging through extracurricular activity is a critical intervention in combating the challenges of foster care and promoting success.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
The mission of happy trails to kids is to cultivate the joy of childhood memories, sense of belonging within stable relationships, and improved well-being for children experiencing foster care by providing experienced-based interventions of overnight camps, positive peer connections, and year-round engagements that span over multiple years.Happy Trails for Kids provided cost-free summer, winter and spring overnight camps and year-round educational and extracurricular engagements to approximately 500 children in foster care.
$935,631 spentof which $2,500 as grants100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $935,631.
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 $543k to $1.2M (+122%).
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: 2019 14% · 2020 3% · 2021 12% · 2022 25% · 2023 33% · 2024 32%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
100% of HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS’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 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.
Chief executive
Lindsay Elliott
Executive director
Board chair
Jonathan Abrams
Chairman
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2018 and FY2019 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 11 funders to 17 funders, grant income rose $80k → $248k.
9 of 57 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 38% 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 HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 57 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
HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS 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
57% 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 HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 63% · 2018 65% · 2019 36% · 2020 39% · 2021 36% · 2022 48% · 2023 40% — 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
29% of HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS'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
53% of HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.4M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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
HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 11,263 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 11,263 human services nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS
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 California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
80% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
86%
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 HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS: 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 HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS?
- HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS (California) receives grants from 57 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,775,305 to it, the largest being CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($1,025,100). 32 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS have?
- IRS filings report 57 organizations giving $3,775,305 in grants to HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS, 32 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS?
- CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,025,100 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like HAPPY TRAILS FOR KIDS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. 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 Happy Trails for Kids →
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 57 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