Pennsylvania · Nonprofit
HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC
HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 24 organizations whose IRS filings report $990,399 to it, the largest being DORIS DUKE FOUNDATION FOR ISLAMIC ART ($534,460). 15 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.6M
- Funders on record
- 24
- Grants received
- $990k
- Net assets
- $6.4M
What Highlights Foundation Inc does
Mission
Positively impact children by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inform, educate, and inspire children to become their best selves. The foundation hosts workshops and retreats, both at its retreat center in northeast pa, and online, that encourage and nurture storytellers and illustrators who create books for children. Provides scholarships to ease the financial costs.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Boyds mills positively impacts children by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inform, educate, and inspire children to become their best selves. We do not take lightly what it means to create engaging, authentic stories for children and youth. We believe that you, as storytellers, have profound impacts on the lives of children. This matters a great deal to us as an organization, and most importantly to our world.for more than 40 years, boyds mills (formerly the highlights foundation) has embraced the core values that serve our mission: excellence, creativity, diversity, and integrity.year after year, online and in-person, our programs, staff, faculty, and scholarships help us bring this mission to you. We offer a range of topics and types of courses, from no-cost webinars to week-long residencies to online intensives. These offerings provide education, support, and encouragement for both beginning and published authors and illustrators, and are led by children's publishing professionals: editors, authors, illustrators, art directors, publishers, agents, academics, and others who are there to help our community realize their creative goals.
$2,316,315 spentof which $103,900 as grants$1,886,816 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $2,316,315.
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.
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 $6.2M to $6.8M (+10%).
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.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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
George Brown
Executive director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 9 funders, grant income rose $7k → $68k.
6 of 24 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 26% 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 HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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
HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 54% of grant income and the top three 77%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
27% 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 HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 85% · 2018 65% · 2019 50% · 2020 92% · 2021 67% · 2022 95% · 2023 74% — 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
57% of HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 63% 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
HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC draws 92% of its grant income from funders outside Pennsylvania, across 9 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $259k arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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.
Government funding HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $50k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$50k
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 HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION 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 Pennsylvania
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
86% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
85%
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 HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION 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 HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC?
- HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 24 organizations whose IRS filings report $990,399 to it, the largest being DORIS DUKE FOUNDATION FOR ISLAMIC ART ($534,460). 15 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC have?
- IRS filings report 24 organizations giving $990,399 in grants to HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC, 15 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC?
- DORIS DUKE FOUNDATION FOR ISLAMIC ART is the largest funder on record, with $534,460 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like HIGHLIGHTS FOUNDATION INC 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.
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 24 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