Oregon · Nonprofit
SMART READING
SMART READING (Oregon) receives grants from 148 organizations whose IRS filings report $11,069,050 to it, the largest being THE OREGON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($2,354,652). 102 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 54% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.6M
- Funders on record
- 148
- Grants received
- $11M
- Net assets
- $5.4M
What Smart Reading does
Mission
To spark joy and opportunity through the magic of a shared book.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Smart Reading is a nationally recognized, statewide nonprofit organization (incorporated in the state of oregon) with a network of volunteers, educators, donors, and advocates across oregon who are banding together to empower children for more successful futures through books and reading. Headquartered in portland, Smart Reading envisions an oregon in which every child can realize their full potential through reading. Smart Reading engages community volunteers to read one-on-one or in groups with prekindergarten through third grade children. Participating children also receive new books each month to keep and read with their families.Smart Reading partners with over 250 high need schools and head start programs across oregon. Smart Reading is overwhelmingly funded by private sources, and achieves this work by leveraging private dollars and public infrastructure to provide proven reading support and books for thousands of oregon children. The intention of Smart Reading is to provide a fun, child-guided experience that builds reading skills, self-confidence, and a lifelong love of reading in children - and ensures all students have access to high-quality, inclusive books.during the…
$3,274,955 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $3,274,955.
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 $6.0M to $7.5M (+26%).
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: 2017 13% · 2018 5% · 2020 18% · 2021 10% · 2022 4% · 2023 8% · 2024 2% · 2025 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
101% of SMART READING’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. 5 of the last 8 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
Jessica Bowersox
Executive director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 37 funders to 63 funders, grant income rose $702k → $1.9M.
22 of 148 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 54% 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: $100k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest The Children's Book Bank). These are real filings, and they are not money SMART READING raised.
From the IRS filings of SMART READING’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 148 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
SMART READING has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 21% 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
59% 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 SMART READING.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 30% · 2018 33% · 2019 27% · 2020 29% · 2021 19% · 2022 22% · 2023 21% — 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 SMART READING's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 69% 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
54% of SMART READING's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $5.1M that is directly attributable, 70% of it comes from Oregon funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $6.0M arriving through sponsors registered in 16 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
SMART READING receives grants from 148 organizations whose IRS filings report $11M to it.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,615 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding SMART READING receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $881k on record — $187k federal, $694k state.
- Department of Education$187k
- DISTRIBUTION TO NON-GOVERNMENTS$665k
- DISTRIBUTION TO NON-PROFIT ORG$29k
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like SMART READING
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 Oregon
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
88%
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 SMART READING: 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 SMART READING?
- SMART READING (Oregon) receives grants from 148 organizations whose IRS filings report $11,069,050 to it, the largest being THE OREGON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($2,354,652). 102 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 54% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does SMART READING have?
- IRS filings report 148 organizations giving $11,069,050 in grants to SMART READING, 102 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SMART READING?
- THE OREGON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $2,354,652 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SMART READING find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Oregon. 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 Smart Reading →
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 148 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