Virginia · Nonprofit
Next Step to Success
Next Step to Success (Virginia) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,552,500 to it, the largest being THE LANDMARK FOUNDATION ($750,000). 3 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $6.7M
- Funders on record
- 8
- Grants received
- $1.6M
- Net assets
- $10M
What Next Step to Success does
Mission
To help youth in Norfolk build the independent, resilient character they will need to earn success and enjoy happy, fulfilling lives as adults.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
For far too long, Norfolk has been marked by concentrations of chronic, intergenerational poverty and dependency, with a poverty rate almost twice the state average and over 25% of our children growing up in poverty. Everyone always says that "they" should do something about this (whoever "they" are). Well, we decided that we and our community partners are "they". Next Step to Success is a free after-school and summer experiential learning program that empowers teenagers from low-income households in Norfolk to build the independent, resilient character they will need to earn success and enjoy happy, fulfilling lives as adults. By inspiring our youth to adhere to the data-validated "Success Sequence," our ultimate objective is to cut the poverty rate in our city by one-half within a generation. We will accomplish this by honing the character strengths, life skills, success strategies, and high self-expectations that will enable our youth to reach escape velocity from their economically disadvantaged backgrounds. These "Success Stories" (as we call our youth) will then become the "influencers" of their peers within the communities where poverty is most concentrated, gradually but…
$1,339,958 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,339,958.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2023, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2023, 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 2024 to 2025, from $3.7M to $11M (+192%).
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.
99% of Next Step to Success’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. 0 of the last 3 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
Robert McCartney
Chief Executive Officer
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
Grant support over time, funder by funder — shade shows the grant size each year.
2 of 8 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 25% 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: $5.9M from 2 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest James Barry Robinson Institute). These are real filings, and they are not money Next Step to Success raised.
From the IRS filings of Next Step to Success’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
Next Step to Success leans on a few funders — its largest provides 48% of grant income and the top three 88%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
35% 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 Next Step to Success.
“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.
Where its funders are
100% of Next Step to Success's grant income comes from Virginia funders.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $383k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 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
Next Step to Success runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters 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 Next Step to Success
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 Virginia
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
83% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 4 related entities
- The James Barry-Robinson Institute · exempt
- Saint Patrick Catholic School Foundation · exempt
- James Barry Robinson Home for Boys Trust · exempt
- Barry-Robinson Schools of Norfolk · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Next Step to Success: 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 Next Step to Success?
- Next Step to Success (Virginia) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,552,500 to it, the largest being THE LANDMARK FOUNDATION ($750,000). 3 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Next Step to Success have?
- IRS filings report 8 organizations giving $1,552,500 in grants to Next Step to Success, 3 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Next Step to Success?
- THE LANDMARK FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $750,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Next Step to Success find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Virginia. 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 Next Step to Success →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2023–2025), and the filings of 8 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