California · Nonprofit
StartOut
StartOut (California) receives grants from 37 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,708,744 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($655,000). 25 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.9M
- Funders on record
- 37
- Grants received
- $3.7M
- Net assets
- $609k
What StartOut does
Mission
StartOut executes its mission and serves its beneficiaries through afull suite of programs critical to an entrepreneur's success,supported by an industry-leading online platform. Programs toaccelerate the success of StartOut entrepreneurs are clustered in four areas: community building includes networking events, our network and forum; skill development include mentorship, office hours, and educational event; access to capital include our growth lab accelerator and investor portal; and thought leadership include our research project, the StartOut pride economic impact index, signature events, and education for lgbtq+ entrepreneurs and investors.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
In 2025, StartOut continued to deepen its commitment to supporting scalable LGBTQ+ and allied entrepreneurs through a comprehensive suite of programs designed to move founders from early-stage ideation to institutional readiness. Across the Founders Program, we supported approximately 490 unique scalable founders through education, mentorship, and community programming maintaining a combined NPS score of 8.785 across all programs. Our Mentorship program onboarded 72 new mentors, bringing our active network to over 600 subject matter experts, while our Expert Office Hours program achieved an exceptional 9.5 NPS score. We also launched the Spark Lab Incubator and ran two successful Growth Lab cohorts, with demand exceeding expectations at 42 qualified applicants per cycle a 40% increase over target and a strong 8.8 NPS across both programs.
$1,419,060 spent$11,200 earned by the program100% of program spendingCommunity engagement was a defining strength of 2025. We hosted 92 events across our key markets of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago, generating over 7,600 RSVPs. A landmark achievement was the staging of our first-ever in-person StartOut Con in San Francisco, which brought together 180 attendees for panels, networking, Expert Office Hours Live, and a keynote from Gabbi Tuft of Glo Foods. The StartOut Awards and Demo Days in Los Angeles and San Francisco were also tremendous successes, reinforcing our presence in the markets where our founders are building. Our social media following grew to over 57,000, and we generated more than 1,100 qualified leads through partner engagements feeding directly into our founder pipeline.
Perhaps most significantly, 2025 saw the completion of StartOut's new Strategic Plan, which charts a clear path toward focusing the organization's resources on scalable tech and CPG founders with high-growth potential. This strategic shift positions StartOut to maximize its impact by concentrating support where it can drive the greatest economic outcomes for the LGBTQ+ and allied entrepreneurial community. Combined with 8 new corporate sponsors, an 87% renewal rate on institutional gifts, and total organizational revenue of approximately $2 million, StartOut enters 2026 with strong momentum, a sharpened mission, and the infrastructure to scale alongside the founders we serve.
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,419,060.
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.
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 $2.0M to $1.1M (−45%).
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.
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
Brian Richardson
CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 15 funders, grant income rose $28k → $773k.
15 of 37 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 48% 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 StartOut’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 37 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
StartOut has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 18% 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
53% 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 StartOut.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 55% · 2018 36% · 2019 75% · 2020 34% · 2021 22% · 2022 29% · 2023 34% — 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
45% of StartOut's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 68% 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
StartOut draws 98% of its grant income from funders outside California, across 12 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.8M arriving through sponsors registered in 11 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.
Organizations like StartOut
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 California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
69% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
98%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 2 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for StartOut: 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 StartOut?
- StartOut (California) receives grants from 37 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,708,744 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($655,000). 25 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does StartOut have?
- IRS filings report 37 organizations giving $3,708,744 in grants to StartOut, 25 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of StartOut?
- Silicon Valley Community Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $655,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like StartOut find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. 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 StartOut →
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 37 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