Our 2025 annual report, including the bad parts

The FY2025 annual report is out. It is 24 pages, it has an illustration of a shark on page 11, and it includes a section called “What went wrong” that the board debated for twenty minutes before voting to keep it in.

The numbers

Revenue was $3.42 million and expenses were $3.36 million. We ended the year with 5.1 months of reserve, below our six-month target, after two large facility expenses. The audit was clean.

The five things

1. The waitlist grew by 131 kids even after we added 140 seats. Demand is outrunning us.
2. The Cully HVAC cost $214,000, double the first quote, because we delayed the decision by a year.
3. Staff turnover was 19%, above our 15% target, concentrated among part-time program assistants.
4. We missed the small-donor goal by $61,000 and covered it with a one-time foundation grant.
5. One site lost a week to a burst pipe and families were notified late. We now have a text tree.

Every one of those is in the report with an explanation and, where we have one, a fix. We do not have a fix for the waitlist yet beyond the seventh site, and the report says so.

What we are proud of

The salon gave 1,907 free haircuts. The teen leadership cohort retained 94% of its apprentices. The Nothing program has four years of survey data and the largest gain in persistence of any program we run. The kitchen table kids costed out a menu that came in under budget for the first time.

Budget and audit →