California · Nonprofit
The Jester & Pharley Phund
The Jester & Pharley Phund (California) receives grants from 29 organizations whose IRS filings report $816,301 to it, the largest being THE KENNETH T AND EILEEN L NORRIS FOUNDATION ($160,000). 17 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $218k
- Funders on record
- 29
- Grants received
- $816k
- Net assets
- $544k
What The Jester & Pharley Phund does
Mission
The Jester & Pharley Phund is dedicated to engaging underserved and ill children through the joys of reading and laughter, empowering them with greater self-efficacy, resilience, compassion and hope for the future. Our programs are centered on the award-winning childrens book The Jester Has Lost His Jingle, written and illustrated by David Saltzman who died at 22 from cancer. His story, now in its 30th year of publication, inspires children to live up to The Jester & Pharleys motto: Its up to us to make a difference. Its up to us to care.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Our medical program - Smiles For Kids With Cancer - brings educational and emotional support to hospitalized children while providing health-care professionals with powerful tools to raise the spirits of ill children and their families with the original English Jester or our bilingual English/Spanish edition. To date, 82,010 Jester books have been donated to over 440 hospitals and medical-support organizations, including 5,053 books during this fiscal year. Support comes from foundations, businesses, civic groups and individuals. Jester books are distributed on an ongoing basis according to each hospitals needs. Expenses include the printing and personalizing of each bookplate acknowledging the donor(s) of each gift book and Jester & Pharley Doll as well as the cost of goods, communication, storage, packaging and shipping. Hospitals, cancer-support centers and recipient families have particularly appreciated the donation of Jester books in 2024-25 because The Jesters emotional support helps children cope with post-covid depression and sadness. Thank you for giving critically ill children and their families strength and hope for happier, healthier days, reported the Washington,…
$64,988 spent30% of program spendingOur literacy programs increase elementary students interest in reading - opening the door to academic success. Motivating assemblies inspire students to join a Jester Read-A-Thon that generates the donation of The Jester Has Lost His Jingle books and Jester & Pharley Dolls to local hospitalized children. In the process, students get hooked on reading - raising grade-level reading, test scores, fluency and comprehension while developing growing empathy for others. During the last 24 years, students have read over 57 million pages to help ill children benefit from The Jesters messages of self-empowerment, perseverance and humor. Expenses include the printing and personalizing of each bookplate acknowledging the donor(s) of each gift book and doll as well as the cost of project development, assemblies, communication, goods, storage, packaging, transportation and shipping. A. Reading Makes A Difference (RMD) We bring this sponsor-supported program celebrating literacy to low-income schools. The program helps further educational equity among disenfranchised students coping with poverty, social isolation and learning loss. The school receives three Jester & Pharley Phund…
$154,531 spent70% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $219,519.
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 2021 to 2022, from $432k to $560k (+29%).
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: 2021 18% · 2022 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
106% of The Jester & Pharley Phund’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (91% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 9 funders to 8 funders, grant income rose $59k → $64k.
8 of 29 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 43% 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 The Jester & Pharley Phund’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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
The Jester & Pharley Phund has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 20% 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
45% 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 The Jester & Pharley Phund.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 41% · 2018 52% · 2019 45% · 2020 21% · 2021 46% · 2022 30% · 2023 39% — broadly stable.
“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
40% of The Jester & Pharley Phund's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 59% 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
83% of The Jester & Pharley Phund's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $353k 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
The Jester & Pharley Phund is better cushioned than half of the 21,616 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 21,616 human services nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like The Jester & Pharley Phund
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
94% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
40%
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 The Jester & Pharley Phund: 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 The Jester & Pharley Phund?
- The Jester & Pharley Phund (California) receives grants from 29 organizations whose IRS filings report $816,301 to it, the largest being THE KENNETH T AND EILEEN L NORRIS FOUNDATION ($160,000). 17 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does The Jester & Pharley Phund have?
- IRS filings report 29 organizations giving $816,301 in grants to The Jester & Pharley Phund, 17 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The Jester & Pharley Phund?
- THE KENNETH T AND EILEEN L NORRIS FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $160,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The Jester & Pharley Phund 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 Jester & Pharley Phund →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 29 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