Chispa Project
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 811094634
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2022–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2021, Form 990-N 2017
- Location
- St Louis, MO, USA
- Phone
- 7205883315
- Rating
- 72
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- International Development
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $346,122
- Expenses
- $349,242
- Assets
- $174,695
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
10 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Sara Burkes Brakhane (Executive Director)
- Maiko Ushida (President, Board of Directors)
- Emily Smith (Vice President, Board of Directors)
Highest reported compensation
- Sara Burkes Brakhane (Executive Director): $59,583 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
In Spanish, "chispa" means "spark," which is exactly our goal: to inspire and empower Honduran students with access to books by creating school libraries through a community driven approach. We work directly with local Honduran leaders to bring students their first children's books and support the new libraries throughout the school year. We also provide an integral training with parents, teachers, and students for the best usage of the books to improve children's reading fluency and comprehension. Finally, we use local and international volunteers to help fund and support new libraries while facilitating intercultural opportunities within different Honduran and international communities.
What it reported doing in 2025
New School Libraries: 13 new children's libraries installed, 3,772 students reached. Increased follow-up with school from 1 to 2 years. Continued programming with 5,500 students from 2024. Schools help fundraise as a symbolic support towards library.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 70% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 77% for direct work, and 23% for grants.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and most voting board members are independent. The filing does not identify recipients for some grant dollars and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 82
- Transparency & Controls: 59
- Accountability: 73
- Sustainability: 34
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 87.7%; rating input score 88
- Program expense ratio: 86.8%; rating input score 87
- Fundraising efficiency: $9.97 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 37; 37th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 81.8%; rating input score 82; 1st percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: 5 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 62
- Claims monitoring procedures: Pass
- Requires narrative reports: Pass
- Conducts field audits: Fail
- May suspend future funding: Fail
- Requires financial reports: Pass
- Conducts site visits: Pass
- Requires grant agreements: Pass
- May require repayment: Fail
- Grant itemization coverage: 0%; rating input score 0; 20th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 90%; rating input score 90; 27th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 4 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -0.9%; rating input score 33; 33rd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.5; rating input score 25; 25th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 17.1%; rating input score 21; 21st percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 10.9% per year; rating input score 100; 69th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 19.1% per year; rating input score 100; 85th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 27.6% per year; rating input score 100; 89th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 87.7% of revenue deployed · 86.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 9 of 10 board members independent · 4 of 8 filing controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $303K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $60K · 10 people listed
- Consistency: 38 of 40 current checks pass · 2 findings to review
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors and foreign activity
- Filing history: 4 filing years from 2022 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- High — Transparency & Controls: Grant itemization coverage scored 0/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 7 not reported.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 37/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Foreign activity oversight: 3 of 8 not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 33/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 25/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 21/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Foreign grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.