Pennsylvania · Nonprofit
TREE HOUSE BOOKS
TREE HOUSE BOOKS (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 62 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,591,192 to it, the largest being THE PHILADELPHIA FOUNDATION ($774,000). 37 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $1.0M
- Funders on record
- 62
- Grants received
- $2.6M
- Net assets
- $1.3M
What Tree House Books does
Mission
At Tree House Books, our vision is that every child in philadelphia has access to books, and every opportunity to pursue their dreams. We are on a mission to grow and sustain a community of readers, writers, and thinkers. Since 2005, Tree House Books has provided out of school time (ost) programs that spark a lifelong love of reading and writing in children from their earliest moments, through high school and beyond. Our space is a warm, safe haven for children to explore their interests. We support the crucial role families play in creating a literacy-rich environment, and actively work to promote families reading together at home. Everything we do is made possible through the investment and support of the community.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
Tree House Books marked a significant milestone in 2025, celebrating its 20th anniversary while achieving record programmatic outcomes. The year started off in recovery from a christmas day water emergency that closed our doors for 3 weeks and resulted in the loss of over 5,000 books. Our supporters stepped up and made sure this setback would not set us back for long. In just three weeks, we were back running at full capacity, and we received more book donations than at any other point in our history. In order to properly celebrate our 20th anniversary, we gathered together often to celebrate the history of Tree House Books. It all started with an alumni reunion in april, where founders, past staff, volunteers, families, and youth shared stories of how this place helped shape their lives: from becoming better readers, to alumni starting their own nonprofits, to former students bringing their children to enjoy the reading loft. The celebrations continued with our 20th anniversary champions of literacy event, where we heard from alum dr. Mecca jamiliah sullivan, our first program director. She was presented her award by former board member eli goldblatt and former executive director…
$686,964 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $686,964.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2019, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2019, 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 $842k to $1.3M (+49%).
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 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
98% of TREE HOUSE BOOKS’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. 0 of the last 6 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.
Board chair
Laurice Smith
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 10 funders to 26 funders, grant income rose $57k → $522k.
10 of 62 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 37% 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 TREE HOUSE BOOKS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 62 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
TREE HOUSE BOOKS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 30% 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
44% 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 TREE HOUSE BOOKS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 22% · 2018 27% · 2019 30% · 2020 29% · 2021 27% · 2022 38% · 2023 39% — growing more concentrated.
“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
48% of TREE HOUSE BOOKS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 60% 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
84% of TREE HOUSE BOOKS's grant income comes from Pennsylvania funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $961k arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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
TREE HOUSE BOOKS has grown faster than three-quarters of the 11,752 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 11,752 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like TREE HOUSE BOOKS
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 Pennsylvania
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
55% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
85%
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 TREE HOUSE BOOKS: 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 TREE HOUSE BOOKS?
- TREE HOUSE BOOKS (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 62 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,591,192 to it, the largest being THE PHILADELPHIA FOUNDATION ($774,000). 37 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does TREE HOUSE BOOKS have?
- IRS filings report 62 organizations giving $2,591,192 in grants to TREE HOUSE BOOKS, 37 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of TREE HOUSE BOOKS?
- THE PHILADELPHIA FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $774,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like TREE HOUSE BOOKS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Pennsylvania. 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 Tree House Books →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2019–2024), and the filings of 62 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