Massachusetts · Nonprofit
RAR-MA INC
RAR-MA INC (Massachusetts) receives grants from 90 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,031,708 to it, the largest being Children's Hospital Corporation ($1,036,228). 52 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.4M
- Funders on record
- 90
- Grants received
- $6.0M
- Net assets
- $1.2M
What Rar-Ma Inc does
Mission
Our mission is to close the literacy opportunity gap among children from birth to age six in under-resourced communities by helping families develop and practice shared home reading habits.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Rar-ma teaches parents to share books with young children to build their language, literacy, cognitive, and school readiness skills, and fosters family engagement through parent outreach, coaching, and access to culturally relevant and age appropriate books. Our program is driven by more than 35 years of research that shows the most significant factor impacting a child's academic success is being regularly read to by a parent or caregiver before starting kindergarten. Rar-ma improves academic outcomes for all children, with a focus on low-income children and children whose first language is not english. Our goal is to end the literacy opportunity gap by helping families develop high-impact reading routines that lay the foundation for a lifetime of learning success and productive, responsible citizenship.
$1,152,487 spent$119,744 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,152,487.
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 2024 to 2025, from $1.5M to $1.3M (−14%).
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: 2021 11% · 2022 15%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
88% of RAR-MA INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (48% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 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
Christine Ward
Executive director
Board chair
Mercedes Dahar
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2017 and FY2018 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 18 funders to 47 funders, grant income rose $608k → $945k.
15 of 90 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 32% 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 RAR-MA INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 90 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
RAR-MA INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 17% 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
70% 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 RAR-MA INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 70% · 2018 60% · 2019 30% · 2020 28% · 2021 19% · 2022 12% · 2023 14% — 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
46% of RAR-MA INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 58% 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
87% of RAR-MA INC's grant income comes from Massachusetts funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.9M 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
RAR-MA INC holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 9,398 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,398 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like RAR-MA 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 Massachusetts
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
72% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
98%
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 RAR-MA 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 RAR-MA INC?
- RAR-MA INC (Massachusetts) receives grants from 90 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,031,708 to it, the largest being Children's Hospital Corporation ($1,036,228). 52 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does RAR-MA INC have?
- IRS filings report 90 organizations giving $6,031,708 in grants to RAR-MA INC, 52 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of RAR-MA INC?
- Children's Hospital Corporation is the largest funder on record, with $1,036,228 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like RAR-MA INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Massachusetts. 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 Rar-Ma →
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 90 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