Pennsylvania · Nonprofit
PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER
PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 34 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,882,383 to it, the largest being OUTWARD BOUND INC ($1,063,735). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.5M
- Funders on record
- 34
- Grants received
- $3.9M
- Net assets
- $1.8M
What Philadelphia Outward Bound Center does
Mission
The philadelphia outward school's (pobs) mission is to spark lifelong growth through challenge - outside. We facilitate adventurous learning, rooted in the outdoors, to unlock confidence, curiosity, and the skills to thrive with purpose.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Insight programs are one-day facilitated outward bound experiences held at our headquarters at the discovery center in fairmount park and in wissahickon valley park. Participants move through a progression of activities beginning with ground-based team challenges and building toward a peak experience such as climbing the high ropes course. Each program day is designed to build connection, communication, and confidence within a group. In 2025, pobs served 5,502 youth through this introductory-level program. They came primarily from school district of philadelphia public schools and other nearby district public schools followed by youth from charter and independent/private schools. Students spanned grades 6 - 12. For many young people, spending 5-6 hours immersed in outdoor experiential learning provides a rare and formative opportunity to experience the natural world, challenge themselves, and discover new possibilities. In 2025, pobs surveyed 760 insight students to measure the impact of our programs. Combined with findings from students participating in our multi- day wilderness expeditions, the largest growth areas were group relationships, assertiveness, and social…
$2,098,273 spent$1,483,949 earned by the program100% of program spendingExpedition programs are immersive, multi-day wilderness experiences that accelerate social-emotional skills related to courage, belonging, reflection, and physical engagement. Participants primarily come from a school's specific grade level, a leadership group, club, or affinity cohort. Expeditions range 5-14 days and take place along the appalachian trail in the delaware water gap. Along with the rigors of camping, students engage in 2-3 physical challenges (hiking, canoeing, and rock climbing). Together, they navigate sharing team responsibilities: cooking, decision making, route planning, and problem-solving. Pobs also offers merit-based 100% scholarship summer expeditions open to youth throughout the region. These opportunities attract motivated students who previously participated previously in a one-day insight program or a school/group sponsored expedition. In 2025, 611 youth participated in a multi-day wilderness expedition; 418 of these students were surveyed post course to measure the impact of our programs. Combined with findings from students participating in insight days, the largest growth areas were group relationships, assertiveness, and social responsibility.…
Educator and other adult professional development programs primarily use the single day insight model adapted for a mature student working in education, nonprofit, and corporate settings. Pobs customizes the program to address each organization's teamwork, communication, and problem-solving goals. The exception is the 7-day summer canoe expedition for educators from pobs' partner schools and youth-serving partner organizations. In both cases, participants build trust and gain new perspectives on leadership. Educators and school administrators gain a direct and deeper understanding of the outward bound education model and are then better equipped to support the transfer of their students' learning from pobs course to classroom to community. In 2025, pobs engaged 520 teachers and administrators involved in secondary education as well as 908 other adults ranging from veterans and people working in the corporate, government, and nonprofit sectors. After completing a program with their team, 85% of the 2025 professional program participants surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that they felt more committed to their team's success and 80% agreed that they feel more aligned with their…
A top and ongoing priority for pobs remains deepening partnerships with community organizations and residents of strawberry mansion, the neighborhood that surrounds the discovery center, our headquarters in east fairmount park. Since 2018, pobs has shared this world-class environmental education facility with audubon mid-atlantic (ama). Community input was critical for creating the discovery center. Ever since the facility opened in 2018, pobs and ama have worked to offer a monthly schedule of programming for the community. These discovery days offer a variety of educational and physical activities using both indoor and outdoor classrooms, exhibits, trails, climbing wall, high ropes course, the 37-acre lake, and bird watching lookouts. Open to the public year-round, pobs collaborated with ama to offer 10 weekend events designed to introduce community members to each organization's respective programs. Pobs and ama organize ongoing advisory group meetings and the volunteers plan and promote the events. This consistent outreach fosters neighborhood adults' understanding of what pobs and ama offer and builds the trust critical for them to support their children's participation in…
The 4 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,098,273.
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 2019 to 2020, from $2.0M to $2.7M (+38%).
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: 2022 12%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
50% of PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (82% 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.
Board chair
Matt Norcini
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 15 funders, grant income rose $100k → $568k.
11 of 34 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 30% 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 PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 34 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
PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER leans on a few funders — its largest provides 27% of grant income and the top three 64%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 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 PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 61% · 2018 60% · 2019 37% · 2020 35% · 2021 41% · 2022 33% · 2023 35% — 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
44% of PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 62% 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
PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER draws 53% of its grant income from funders outside Pennsylvania, across 10 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.2M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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
PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER's funding base is broadening — from 4 funders to 15 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,152 youth development nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER
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
58% 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 2 states
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- East Park Leadership and Conservati · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER: 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 PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER?
- PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 34 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,882,383 to it, the largest being OUTWARD BOUND INC ($1,063,735). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER have?
- IRS filings report 34 organizations giving $3,882,383 in grants to PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER, 21 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER?
- OUTWARD BOUND INC is the largest funder on record, with $1,063,735 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like PHILADELPHIA OUTWARD BOUND CENTER 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.
Play a game about who funds Philadelphia Outward Bound Center →
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 34 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