Financial Transparency

Where every
dollar goes.

We founded Ripple Affect in 2025 because we believed the organizations trying to expand sport access owed donors the full truth about how their money is used.

First financial report publishing Q4 2026

Where We Stand

We're in year one —
and honest about it.

Ripple Affect was founded in 2025. We are early. We haven't yet raised the funds that would make a financial report meaningful, and presenting invented allocation charts or placeholder percentages would be exactly the kind of misleading behaviour we're committed to never doing.

What we do have is a clear philosophy about how money should flow through an organization like ours, a data-driven approach to deciding where it goes, and a set of concrete commitments about what we'll publish once we have real dollars to account for.

This page is that philosophy. It's our promise, in writing, before a single dollar has been raised.

Donors don't just fund programs. They extend trust. The only honest response to that trust is full transparency — not when it's convenient, but from the very beginning.
Ripple Affect · Founding Principle, 2025

Our Commitment

What we've committed
to publishing.

These aren't aspirational — they are the specific things we will publish, in the specific formats listed, on the schedule shown further down this page. Hold us to them.

Full annual financial statements
Income, expenses, and program spending in plain language — not just summary figures.
Program-level spending breakdowns
Every major program will show exactly how funds were used and what outcomes were achieved.
IRS Form 990 — full filing
The complete 990, not an edited summary. Publicly accessible here every year without exception.
Donor impact updates
Recurring donors receive direct updates showing how their cumulative giving contributed to specific outcomes.

Spending Philosophy

How we think
about money.

We don't have real percentages to publish yet — and fabricating them would be dishonest. What we have is a clear set of priorities that will govern every spending decision we make, in order of importance.

1
First priority
Programs reach people first

The primary purpose of every dollar raised is to put elite athlete experience into the communities that need it. Before any other consideration, we ask: does this spending directly serve a young athlete or a community? If not, it has to justify itself against that standard.

This covers
Athlete-led clinics and training sessions
Youth mentorship programs
Equipment and facility access
Program design and delivery costs
2
Second priority
Athletes are compensated fairly

The athletes who power our mission give their time, expertise, and stories. We believe this should be compensated — not as an afterthought, but as a reflection of how seriously we take their contribution. Unsustainable volunteerism is not a model we will rely on.

This covers
Athlete honoraria and engagement fees
Travel and accommodation
Partnership coordination
Onboarding and program training
3
Third priority
Community relationships are resourced

Programs don't run in a vacuum. Building authentic relationships with local organizations, schools, and partners requires real investment. Underfunding this work is how nonprofits burn out the communities they claim to serve. We will not do that.

This covers
Local partnership development
Community needs assessment
School and league coordination
Outreach in target communities
4
Fourth priority
Operations stay lean, not absent

Running a credible, growing nonprofit requires infrastructure — staff, legal, accounting, technology. We are committed to keeping this as lean as responsible management allows, but we won't underfund operations just to make an overhead ratio look good on paper.

This covers
Staff salaries and benefits
Legal, accounting, and compliance
Technology and communications
Fundraising and donor relations

How We Decide

Data drives where
our money goes.

Deciding where to invest donor money is one of the most consequential things a nonprofit does. We refuse to make those decisions based on gut feel, relationships, or what looks good on a press release.

Before we enter a community, we research it. Before we run a program, we define what success looks like and how we'll measure it. After we leave, we track outcomes — and use what we learn to make every future investment sharper.

This isn't just good practice. It's what we owe every donor who puts their trust in us.

A note on data and humility: Data informs our decisions — it doesn't make them for us. Community context, lived experience, and athlete insight are inputs that numbers alone can't capture. We use data to sharpen our judgment, not replace it.

How we make investment decisions

1
Identify the need
We research access gaps, participation rates, and community demographics to find where elite athlete experience can create the most meaningful change.
2
Define success before we start
Before a program begins, we establish specific, measurable outcomes — so we're evaluating results against an honest standard, not a moving target.
3
Measure during and after
We track participation, feedback, and outcomes throughout — not just at the end. This gives us the signal to course-correct in real time.
4
Apply learnings to the next investment
Every program makes the next one smarter. What worked, what didn't, and why — all of it feeds directly into how we allocate the next dollar.

What we measure to gauge impact

Participation and reach
Number of youth athletes engaged, communities entered, and programs completed — the raw reach of each investment.
Athlete and community feedback
Direct input from participants, local partners, and the athletes themselves — what actually landed and what needs to change.
Sustained access over time
Whether communities continue to benefit after we leave — the mark of a ripple that keeps moving rather than one that stops when we do.
Cost per meaningful outcome
How efficiently each dollar produces a real outcome — tracked honestly so we can compare programs and improve allocation over time.

Reporting Roadmap

When you'll see
the numbers.

Here is the exact schedule of what we've committed to publishing — not aspirational milestones, but actual deliverables with actual dates.

Now
Spending philosophy and commitments
This page — our framework, priorities, and promises before we've raised a dollar.
Live now
Q3 2026
Mid-year program snapshot
First narrative and financial update — where early funds went and what they produced.
Upcoming
Q4 2026
First full annual report
Complete financials, program outcomes, real allocation percentages, data methodology, and IRS 990.
Upcoming
2027+
Quarterly updates, ongoing
Regular spending summaries, impact data, and program updates published here continuously.
Planned

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reports are published.

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