Tree House Books

What it reported doing in 2025

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 darcy seabright. We also recognized the s. Albert fund as our partner of the year. Our philadelphia literacy day had over 1,400 community members in attendance at our annual street festival. All of our programs took huge steps forward in 2025. We hired a full-time community outreach and book distributor so the traveling tree house could continue to grow and expand. Tree house books distributed 106,513 books in 2025, surpassing 100,000 for the first time in organizational history. This was despite losing a month to the water emergency. We had 266,246 worth of books donated through 59 unique book drives and several hundred individual donors. Our traveling tree house visited 182 partner sites, giving away 18,699 books in 443 stops. Our giving library added 2,014 members for a total of over 10,000. We had 7,538 visits to the giving library in 2025. We also started measuring our impact in reducing waste, saving 30,321 lbs of books from potentially heading into a landfill. Both our after school and summer literacy studios were well attended, with 25 students enrolled in each program. Our summer words on wheels delivery program had 79 student summer readers. Our teen leadership council also stepped into greater leadership this year, planning a writing retreat in the poconos that 12 youth attendedour first of its kind. Our teen program was featured in "ecosystems of youth leadership development: pathways to new programs" by trisha a. Swed, published in february. Once again, we were able to provide a beach day for our neighborhood, renting a bus and taking 50 people for a day of fun at the shore. Community events included town hall meetings and the book release for "we the pizza," penned by our neighbor muhammad abdul-hadi, owner of down north pizza. Our plans for building renovation and program expansion remain on target for completion by the end of 2026. We are in the middle of the silent phase of our capital campaign for the new construction and we are confident we will begin construction in 2026 with no disruption to programming. The board of directors added 3 new members, and saw the departure of 2 members due to terms expiring. We were able to maintain a diverse ratio of board members, with over 50% black and brown leadership. Volunteer support remained essential to operations and 96 volunteers gave 2,289 hours of volunteer time throughout the year.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 46.2%; rating input score 46
• Program expense ratio: 66.6%; rating input score 67
• Fundraising efficiency: $26.67 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: Limited
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 7 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 88
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Other executive compensation review process: Fail
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 31.4%; rating input score 83; 83rd percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.81; rating input score 61; 61st percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.06; rating input score 41; 41st percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 7.9%; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 15% per year; rating input score 100; 71st percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 10.5% per year; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 13.9% per year; rating input score 100; 66th percentile among comparable filings