California · Nonprofit
Words Alive
Words Alive (California) receives grants from 65 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,614,599 to it, the largest being CENTURY CLUB OF SAN DIEGO ($812,874). 35 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.2M
- Funders on record
- 65
- Grants received
- $4.6M
- Net assets
- $2.9M
What Words Alive does
Mission
At Words Alive, we know that whole communities thrive when everyone reads. Our programs empower learners facing extraordinary life circumstances such as unstable housing, poverty, foster care, and impact by the justice system. Words Alive prioritizes the populations disproportionately impacted by the literacy crisis.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Read Aloud Program volunteers share the joy of a good story while helping children develop the cognitive, language, and social-emotional skills needed to be capable readers. Our program inspires students to be curious, courageous, and compassionate by exploring engaging and relevant books together with caring adults. In 2024-2025 program year, we provided weekly read aloud experiences and new books to 3,431 students across 23 Title I elementary schools, 78 out-of-school time providers, and dozens of community-based organizations.Students took home over 14,000 books paired with custom bilingual learning kits to deepen connection to the text.
$392,055 spent$17,706 earned by the program56% of program spendingFamily Literacy Program inspires parents and family caregivers to make exploring books a robust family habit by connecting reading and play.Parents and caregivers receive new childrens books to grow their personal libraries and learn engagement strategies and exploratory activities to use reading as a family at home. Families report reading more often together, for longer periods of time, and practicing positive reading behaviors with their children. Offered in English and Spanish, this six-week workshop series reached 1,358 families and 1,508 family caregivers in the 2024-25 program year and distributed 8,148 books, each paired with a custom bilingual learning kit designed to bring the book alive. An additional 2,000 books were distributed through outreach events to help drive program registration and awareness at partner sites in communities most impacted by the literacy crisis.
$207,455 spent$90,334 earned by the program30% of program spendingAdolescent Book Group ignites a love of reading by connecting teenagers with volunteer facilitators to discuss, write, and create projects that bring books alive. As students share perspectives in this safe space, they improve communication skills, gain confidence, and enhance their ability to express themselves authentically. Diverse and contemporary texts are explored through discussion groups, text analysis, writing workshops, and author/illustrator visits. During the 2024-25 program year, we brought reading alive for 95 teens and young adolescents. We distributed 400 engaging books to young readers in the program, resulting in an average increase of nearly 60 percent in the size of participants personal libraries.
$99,434 spent14% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $698,944.
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 $931k to $3.0M (+224%).
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: 2017 1% · 2018 0% · 2020 12% · 2021 9% · 2022 2% · 2025 6%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
89% of Words Alive’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 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
Rachael Orose
Executive Director
Board chair
Meredith Baratz
Chair
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 21 funders to 28 funders, grant income rose $290k → $822k.
9 of 65 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 40% 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 Words Alive’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 65 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
Words Alive 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
61% 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 Words Alive.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 28% · 2018 24% · 2019 28% · 2020 21% · 2021 19% · 2022 25% · 2023 20% — 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
53% of Words Alive's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 54% 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
80% of Words Alive's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.8M arriving through sponsors registered in 7 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
Words Alive holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Words Alive
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
61% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
64%
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 Words Alive: 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 Words Alive?
- Words Alive (California) receives grants from 65 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,614,599 to it, the largest being CENTURY CLUB OF SAN DIEGO ($812,874). 35 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Words Alive have?
- IRS filings report 65 organizations giving $4,614,599 in grants to Words Alive, 35 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Words Alive?
- CENTURY CLUB OF SAN DIEGO is the largest funder on record, with $812,874 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Words Alive 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 Words Alive →
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 65 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