Alabama · Nonprofit
STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM
STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM (Alabama) receives grants from 49 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,449,748 to it, the largest being ORLEAN & RALPH W BEESON FUND ($488,000). 39 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $736k
- Funders on record
- 49
- Grants received
- $2.4M
- Net assets
- $327k
What Stair of Birmingham does
Mission
The organization's exempt purpose is to provide educational assistanceto birmingham city schools' children through an after school readingprogram.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
The stair program assists first through fourth grade students enrolled in birmingham schools to improve their reading skills. Stair is a primarily after school program using around 300 volunteer tutors/ who teach one-on-one reading lessons to at-risk children. Children are chosen by their teachers in the current tax year. There were 13 sites throughout birmingham, plus a satellite program in gadsden, that served 187 students. Students met tutors twice per week for two hours during september through april. Students are taught a variety of skills necessary to read at grade level. Students who completed the stair program consistently show an average rate of improvement of 40% in phonics skills, a key predictor of long-term reading success. Stair provided over 6,000 tutoring sessions and distributed 2,400 books to students. Students had an average attendance rate of 85% during the year.
$519,745 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $519,745.
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 2022 to 2023, from $281k to $448k (+60%).
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.
95% of STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (57% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 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
Karen Griner
Chief executive officer
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2019 and FY2020 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 17 funders to 25 funders, grant income rose $161k → $397k.
6 of 49 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 10% 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 STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 49 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
STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 20% 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
33% 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 STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 37% · 2018 25% · 2019 25% · 2020 25% · 2021 18% · 2022 17% · 2023 16% — 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
56% of STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 80% 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
77% of STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM's grant income comes from Alabama funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $248k arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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
STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM has grown faster than half of the 17,450 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 17,450 education nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM
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 Alabama
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
70% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
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 STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM: 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 STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM?
- STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM (Alabama) receives grants from 49 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,449,748 to it, the largest being ORLEAN & RALPH W BEESON FUND ($488,000). 39 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM have?
- IRS filings report 49 organizations giving $2,449,748 in grants to STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM, 39 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM?
- ORLEAN & RALPH W BEESON FUND is the largest funder on record, with $488,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Alabama. 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 Stair of Birmingham →
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 49 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