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Pennsylvania · Nonprofit

RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES

RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 53 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,715,812 to it, the largest being HESS FOUNDATION INC ($1,000,000). 27 of them have funded it in more than one year.

Revenue FY2025
$1.8M
Funders on record
53
Grants received
$2.7M
Net assets
$2.7M
27/53 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 25%
01What it does

What Ryan's Case for Smiles does

Mission

Ryan's Case for Smiles walks alongside families, helping them navigate the immediate challenges of life-changing illnesses and injuries, while fostering resilience and mitigating the long-term effects on their mental health and well-being. Our whimsical pillowcases give children an emotional boost, while our online resources and tools, copingspace.org and justsibs.org, help families better understand and cope with the experience.

As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.

Programs

  1. Not described on the e-filed return.

    $1,222,286 spent
    100% of program spending
  2. The organization provides tools and resources to help siblings and parents cope with the emotional trauma that comes with a life-threatening childhood illness in the family. As many as 80 percent of pediatric patients and their families experience symptoms of traumatic stress after an illness, injury, hospitalization or medical procedure, according to the national child traumatic stress network. Siblings are usually the forgotten ones. Case for smiles is focused on offering information about how to deal with traumatic stress for the whole family and developing materials to train child-life specialists to recognize and address symptoms of post-traumatic stress in all family members.

  3. N/a

The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,222,286.

02The organization over time

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.

100 = 20172017 Revenue 100 ($946k) Expenses 100 ($1.0M) Net assets 100 ($1.1M)2018 Revenue 137 ($1.3M) Expenses 115 ($1.2M) Net assets 109 ($1.2M)2019 Revenue 144 ($1.4M) Expenses 103 ($1.1M) Net assets 135 ($1.5M)2020 Revenue 118 ($1.1M) Expenses 116 ($1.2M) Net assets 127 ($1.5M)2021 Revenue 137 ($1.3M) Expenses 132 ($1.4M) Net assets 121 ($1.4M)2022 Revenue 115 ($1.1M) Expenses 112 ($1.2M) Net assets 115 ($1.3M)2023 Revenue 264 ($2.5M) Expenses 176 ($1.8M) Net assets 175 ($2.0M)2024 Revenue 192 ($1.8M) Expenses 132 ($1.4M) Net assets 215 ($2.5M)2025 Revenue 191 ($1.8M) Expenses 147 ($1.5M) Net assets 239 ($2.7M)
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Revenue (191)Expenses (147)Net assets (239)Peer revenue range

Balance sheet

Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $1.4M to $2.0M (+47%).

$1.2M
$1.3M
$1.6M
$1.5M
$1.4M
$1.4M
$2.0M
$2.5M
$2.7M
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

94% of RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (81% for the typical peer).

This organization
Typical peer · 11,793 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.

−$92k
’17
$105k
’18
$297k
’19
−$91k
’20
−$67k
’21
−$71k
’22
$678k
’23
$446k
’24
$282k
’25
12
months of
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

Gavin Kerr

Board chair

As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.

'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Listed10131310889912
Joined·+6+4+2+0+0+4+2+3
No longer listed·34520320
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 6 funders to 17 funders, grant income rose $162k → $431k.

8 of 53 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 24% 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 RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 53 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

RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 37% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left

48% 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 RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES.

37%
largest funder
57%
top three
~6
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 62% · 2018 53% · 2019 35% · 2020 46% · 2021 44% · 2022 21% · 2023 58% — 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

38% of RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 51% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y+3y+4y+5y+6y

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

RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES draws 60% of its grant income from funders outside Pennsylvania, across 18 states in all.

MN
IL
MI
NY
NV
SD
PA
NJ
CT
CA
CO
DE
KS
TN
NC
GA
TX
FL

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
Pennsylvania out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $655k 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.

04Its place in the field

Against its field

RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 6,891 human services nonprofits its size.

Operating margin16% · top quartile
Months of reserve11.8mo · top quartile
Revenue growth (annualized)8% · above the median

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 6,891 human services nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025

Organizations like RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES

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

05Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

80% of spending goes to programs.

Program 80%Management 8%Fundraising 12%

Governance

12
board members
83%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy✓Whistleblower policy✓Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990✓Audited financials

Public support

91%

Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.

Footprint & structure

Files a return copy in 11 states

WI
MI
NY
OH
PA
NJ
CA
VA
MD
OK
FL

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES: 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.

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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 RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES?
RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 53 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,715,812 to it, the largest being HESS FOUNDATION INC ($1,000,000). 27 of them have funded it in more than one year.
How many funders does RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES have?
IRS filings report 53 organizations giving $2,715,812 in grants to RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES, 27 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES?
HESS FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $1,000,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like RYAN'S CASE FOR SMILES 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 Ryan's Case for Smiles →

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 53 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