Virginia · Nonprofit
Real Food for Kids
Real Food for Kids (Virginia) receives grants from 29 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,755,381 to it, the largest being TIDES FOUNDATION ($380,000). 18 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $582k
- Funders on record
- 29
- Grants received
- $1.8M
- Net assets
- $236k
What Real Food for Kids does
Mission
Real Food for Kids' mission is to change eating behaviors and improve health outcomes for children and families in the Greater Washington Region through sustainable access to real whole foods, impactful nutrition education, and local systemic policy changes.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Chefs Feeding Families (CFF) is a collaborative between Real Food for Kids and the hospitality industry to provide chef-inspired plant-forward meals and meal kits to families facing nutrition insecurity and create employment opportunities in D.C.-area restaurants. Launched at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to complement school meal distribution, the program continues to serve children and families throughout the Greater Washington Region with nourishing foods and nutrition literacy collateral to support healthy eating behaviors.
$90,526 spent22% of program spendingThe SNAP Ambassador Program (launched in June 2021) trains individuals in key community positions, such as school social workers and multi-lingual liaisons, affordable housing resident managers, food pantry staff and volunteers, to provide information on SNAP, address misinformation and fears, and support residents with the SNAP enrollment process. Following certification through an online training SNAP Ambassadors volunteer at enrollment clinics and outreach events as well as support families within schools and housing settings. The program serves as outreach for the Department of Human Services.
$121,832 spent30% of program spendingCulinary Challenge - The Real Food for Kids Culinary Challenge is an opportunity for students to play a change-maker role in improving what's on the menu in their cafeterias. This five-month intensive co-curricular program between RFFK and Family and Consumer Sciences educators puts Middle and High School students in the shoes of the school nutrition professionals to create a healthy, delicious, and appealing lunch, breakfast, or snack that meets strict USDA nutrition and cost guidelines. The Challenge culminates in a district wide competition. Winning dishes are adapted by school districts throughout the D.C. region and served to thousands of students. High standards of taste, presentation and originality have inspired our restaurant partners to adapt winning dishes for their own customers.
$53,231 spent13% of program spendingAdvocacy - Real Food for Kids advocates for and has won positive changes to school food policies and has generated institutionalized support for our goal of healthy school food as a critical component of children's wellness and academic success. Current activities focus on increasing access to healthful foods and integrating nutrition education inside and outside school walls to build a population of healthy eaters.
$51,082 spent13% of program spendingThe Chef Exchange Program (CEP) aligns the sister industries of hospitality and school food through sharing best practices, increasing chef-inspired, plant-based and plant-forward options on school menus, and better engaging students and families to increase school meal participation. The program pairs school nutrition professionals with chefs from the hospitality industry to collaborate on new recipes and share best practices, resulting in recipes that can be produced in schools, restaurants and homes. The program seeks to blur the lines between school food, restaurant food and home food to create a culture of healthy food.
$43,402 spent11% of program spendingFresh Food Explorers - is an eight-week nutrition education program for preschoolers from low income communities, at greater risk of developing obesity and related health conditions as a result of diet. The program focuses on building a greater acceptance of vegetables to increase consumption at school and at home. A series of video lessons is paired with hands-on activities to reinforce lesson concepts and food literacy, complemented by parent educational materials to support increased consumption of vegetables in the home.
$47,151 spent12% of program spending
The 6 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $407,224.
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 $220k to $408k (+85%).
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 19%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
100% of Real Food for Kids’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (83% for the typical peer).
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
Bonnie Moore
Executive Director
Board chair
Richard Barnard
Board chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 11 funders, grant income rose $25k → $295k.
7 of 29 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 28% 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 Real Food for Kids’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
Real Food for Kids has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 22% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 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 Real Food for Kids.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 100% · 2019 67% · 2020 48% · 2021 32% · 2022 19% · 2023 51% — 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
27% of Real Food for Kids'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
Real Food for Kids draws 86% of its grant income from funders outside Virginia, across 6 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $498k arriving through sponsors registered in 7 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
Real Food for Kids has grown faster than half of the 3,482 youth development nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,482 youth development nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like Real Food for Kids
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
72% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
94%
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 Real Food for Kids: 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 Real Food for Kids?
- Real Food for Kids (Virginia) receives grants from 29 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,755,381 to it, the largest being TIDES FOUNDATION ($380,000). 18 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Real Food for Kids have?
- IRS filings report 29 organizations giving $1,755,381 in grants to Real Food for Kids, 18 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Real Food for Kids?
- TIDES FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $380,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Real Food for Kids 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 Real Food for Kids →
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 29 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