Texas · Nonprofit
Start Empowerment Inc
Start Empowerment Inc (Texas) receives grants from 17 organizations whose IRS filings report $404,725 to it, the largest being WINDWARD FUND ($155,000). 0 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 51% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $363k
- Funders on record
- 17
- Grants received
- $405k
- Net assets
- $261k
What Start Empowerment Inc does
Mission
Start:Empowerment is a BIPOC-led nonprofit organization operating at the nexus of climate education and environmental justice, advancing community-driven initiatives that empower youth of color to innovate, imagine, and build a just and sustainable future.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
Start:Empowerment provides high-quality, justice-centered climate education that integrates science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) with traditional ecological knowledge. The organization has reached over 120,000 K-12 students through workshops, trainings, and events, and directly engaged 6,200 youth through in-school, after-school, and summer programs, fellowships, and curriculum-based initiatives. Start:Empowerment works directly with 40 teachers to implement its curriculum, and more than 600 have downloaded it for classroom use. The curriculum is accessible to all AISD teachers and distributed through the NYC Department of Education, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) workshops, the Indigenous Cultures Institute, NYU and Columbia Teachers College professional development programs, and Subject to Climate, a national platform providing free, standards-aligned climate education resources. The organization has also created 150-180 internships and 20 youth fellowships.
$196,686 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $196,686.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2023, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2023, 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 2023 to 2024, from $125k to $268k (+115%).
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.
100% of Start Empowerment Inc’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (99% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 2 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
Alexia Leclercq
Executive Director
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2021 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 3 funders, grant income rose $20k → $92k.
6 of 17 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 51% 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 Start Empowerment Inc’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 16 of 17 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
Start Empowerment Inc leans on a few funders — its largest provides 38% of grant income and the top three 63%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
76% 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 Start Empowerment Inc.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2021 100% · 2022 100% · 2023 82% — 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.
Where its funders are
51% of Start Empowerment Inc'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 $199k that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from funders outside Texas, across 7 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $206k arriving through sponsors registered in 5 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
Start Empowerment Inc runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 1,798 civil rights nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,798 civil rights nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like Start Empowerment 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 Texas
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
87% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
0%
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 Start Empowerment 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 Start Empowerment Inc?
- Start Empowerment Inc (Texas) receives grants from 17 organizations whose IRS filings report $404,725 to it, the largest being WINDWARD FUND ($155,000). 0 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 51% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Start Empowerment Inc have?
- IRS filings report 17 organizations giving $404,725 in grants to Start Empowerment Inc.
- Who is the largest funder of Start Empowerment Inc?
- WINDWARD FUND is the largest funder on record, with $155,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Start Empowerment Inc find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Texas. 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 Start Empowerment →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2023–2024), and the filings of 17 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