Maryland · Nonprofit
LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION
LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION (Maryland) receives grants from 62 organizations whose IRS filings report $9,620,957 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($1,826,220). 40 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 56% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $15M
- Funders on record
- 62
- Grants received
- $9.6M
- Net assets
- $43M
What Living Classrooms Foundation does
Mission
Living Classrooms Foundation is a nonprofit organization, operated for the benefit of the community at large, providing hands on education and job training for students from diverse backgrounds, with a special emphasis on serving at-risk youth. The foundation uses maritime settings, community revitalization projects and other challenging learning environments, with a low staff to student ratio. Our experience based educational programs emphasize the applied learning of math, science, language arts, history, economics and ecology. Key objectives of all living classrooms programs are career development, cooperative learning, elevating self-esteem, and fostering multicultural exchange. Living Classrooms Foundation provides over 30 educational programs.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Living Classrooms Foundation operates for the benefit of the community at large, providing hands on education and job skill training for students from diverse backgrounds, with an emphasis on serving at-risk youth.
$7,097,757 spentof which $25,000 as grants$694,387 earned by the program82% of program spendingLiving Classrooms Foundation dc provides youth and adults with challenging educational programs and offers shipboard and outreach programs to the community.
$873,016 spent$119,916 earned by the program10% of program spendingInner harbor paddleboats educates and hires at-risk teenagers to manage, run and maintain paddleboat and electric boat rentals at the inner harbor of baltimore.
$656,554 spent$699,940 earned by the program8% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $8,627,327.
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 2020 to 2021, from $34M to $40M (+16%).
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 19% · 2018 16% · 2019 20% · 2020 21% · 2021 20% · 2022 18% · 2023 32% · 2024 29%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
86% of LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (23% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 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
James Piper Bond
President & CEO
Board chair
Ronald Peterson
Chairman
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 17 funders to 27 funders, grant income rose $873k → $931k.
16 of 62 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 56% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $2.2M from 12 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Baltimore Community Foundation Inc). These are real filings, and they are not money LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION raised.
From the IRS filings of LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 62 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
LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 19% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left
93% 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 LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 29% · 2018 26% · 2019 14% · 2020 20% · 2021 25% · 2022 23% · 2023 17% — 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
32% of LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 65% 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
56% of LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION'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 $4.2M that is directly attributable, 52% of it comes from funders outside Maryland, across 14 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $5.4M 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
LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 4,065 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 4,065 education nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2024
Government funding LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $8.5M on record.
- Department of Labor$3.6M
- Department of the Interior$2.1M
- Department of Justice$1.9M
- Department of Commerce$549k
- Environmental Protection Agency$235k
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$84k
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 LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION
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 Maryland
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
87% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
99%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 13 related entities
- Living Classrooms of the National Capita · disregarded
- Project Serve · exempt
- National Historic Seaport of Baltimore · exempt
- Historic Ships in Baltimore Inc · exempt
- Frederick Douglas Isaac-Myers Maritime · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION: 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 LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION?
- LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION (Maryland) receives grants from 62 organizations whose IRS filings report $9,620,957 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($1,826,220). 40 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 56% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION have?
- IRS filings report 62 organizations giving $9,620,957 in grants to LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION, 40 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION?
- NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $1,826,220 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Maryland. 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 FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 62 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