Break Diving, Inc.
Impact & Transparency
Understand our funds, explore our history, and find the documents behind our charitable mission.
Our funds
These figures come from the existing site fund configuration. A last-updated date is not recorded, so they should not be read as a live bank balance or as audited current financial statements.
Loading recorded fund figures…
Our endowment
Our semi-permanent endowment is intended to help support Break Diving over the long term through invested funds. The earlier explanation and fundraising goals are retained below as historical material.
Earlier endowment explanation and goals
Earlier program notes are preserved below for reference. Prices, availability, application requirements, staffing policies, and old platform instructions may have changed. Please contact us to confirm current details.
About Our Endowment
Break Diving, Inc. is proud to have launched its own endowment. This means we invest money regularly and each month it kicks off interest that one day will allow us to have a regular source of income to keep our charity running.
Ours is a semi-permanent endowment, i.e. the principal balance will never be touched except in the case of grave financial catastrophe, as determined by the board of directors. Our ultimate goal is to surpass one million dollars, as that could kick off $5,000 (or more) per month, thus ensuring the perpetual existence of Break Diving, and ensuring that we always have scholarship money to offer to individuals worldwide.
How it works: when someone makes a one-time donation that is entirely used for one expense, the money only does good once. But if the money is added to an endowment, and that endowment receives interest off of the principal, then that original donation does good every month! Cool, right?
Our mission is to reach $1,000,000 by the year 2030. Any donation greater than $25 will result in a portion going to the endowment, and the balance going to operating expenses.
Will you help us fund our future and become a part of history by making a contribution to our endowment too? Just $26 is all it takes, and will help keep us offering our positive career and life growth services to people around the world.
Dream scholarships & hardship grants
Our scholarship and grant initiative aims to help community members pursue dreams and navigate financial difficulties. Contact us to confirm current availability, eligibility, and the application process. Sending an inquiry is not a completed application.
Earlier scholarship amounts and application criteria
Earlier program notes are preserved below for reference. Prices, availability, application requirements, staffing policies, and old platform instructions may have changed. Please contact us to confirm current details.
About Our Dream Scholarship
& Hardship Grant Program
Break Diving, Inc. is proud to help individuals achieve their dreams and also to help them overcome their financial difficulties (including those difficulties caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic).
Every 6 weeks, while our scholarship funds last, we will be gifting one $50 scholarship/grant to a member of our community: to someone who needs some help pursuing his/her dreams; or to someone who could use a helping hand (or some combination).
Program Status
Yes, Currently Accepting Applications
To Apply
- Join Our Worldwide Success Community & Earn 35 Points: It's free to join and we know your participation will improve your life and career, and also those of our other members. Apply now to join BreakDiving.io.
- Ask About a Scholarship or Grant: Once you have earned 35 points (check your profile) over the last 7 days, contact us about the application process. The former online application form is no longer available. Contacting us does not submit a scholarship application.
Note: to receive the funds, you must provide a valid paypal email address, and (so that your story can inspire others) agree to allow us to post your application answers on our BreakDiving.blog and agree to be interviewed on our YouTube channel (or to send us a pre-recorded 3-minute video answering a few questions).
How money is spent
Our nonprofit mission is supported through donations and services. The earlier explanation of funding, compensation policies, and expenses is preserved below; specific amounts and staffing arrangements are historical, not a statement of current finances.
Earlier financial policies and expense explanation
Earlier program notes are preserved below for reference. Prices, availability, application requirements, staffing policies, and old platform instructions may have changed. Please contact us to confirm current details.
Our unique business model
Break Diving is a unique company. We are founded on the principle that success in life should be accessible to all people, regardless of financial upbringing or status. If someone is willing to work hard, and doesn't expect to get something for nothing, we are willing to guide him or her.
To that end, we offer both paid and no financial cost services to individuals around the world. We also have started a number of scholarship funds for education, world travel, sports, language study, and more.
We are, in addition, raising money for disaster relief and to help find housing for the homeless. We also run a free worldwide online community of thousands and thousands of members, as well as a free personal and business succeess blog for anyone to read. Finally, we offer both free and paid courses in our self-study and live classrooms.
Important to note is our 'volunteer first and always' policy. In other words, if someone wishes to work for us, they must typically first volunteer. After a certain number of volunteer hours, that individual may become eligible to receive a stipend for their work, but must still volunteer a minimum number of hours per month, directly helping those who cannot afford our services. In other words, we only bring people on board who from the beginning are willing to donate their time to the cause without compensation.
Further, each employee's or independent contractor's pay scale is directly related to how many volunteer hours he or she has contributed, and continues to contribute, to the company. The more one volunteers, and continues to volunteer, the more one can be compensated. The more one volunteers, the higher the likelihood that, should a position open up within the company, he or she will get it over someone equally otherwise qualified who applies from outside the company.
This 'volunteer first and always' policy also applies to the Executive Director, i.e. even if on salary, the Executive Director is still be expected to volunteer a minimum number of hours per month to the cause, supervised by another volunteer or board member.
If you would like additional details, we recommend you download all of the IRS approved founding Break Diving tax documents.
___________Want to actually see what we do? Please join our free worldwide online community to see first hand how we are helping people worldwide every hour, every day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Accomplishments & milestones
Read the dated record of our work and goals, newest first. Figures and aspirations belong to the years identified in the record.
2026 accomplishments
- Regained Google Ads grant (Yay!)
- Redesigned and launched new corporate website at breakdiving.org
- Redesigned and launched new community homepage at breakdiving.io, followed by full site redesign (Nov/Dec 2026)
- Released version 2 of Break Diving Mobile apps
2024–2025 accomplishments
- Launched version 1 of our iOS and Android mobile apps
- Somehow lost Google Ads grant
- Slow but steady improvements
2019–2023 accomplishments
- Launched version 1 of our global community
- Received Google Ads Grant
- Slow but steady improvements
2016–2018 accomplishments and goals
Earlier program notes are preserved below for reference. Prices, availability, application requirements, staffing policies, and old platform instructions may have changed. Please contact us to confirm current details.
2018 Mission
- Increase worldwide membership from 3,400 members to over 10,000 members.
- Increase online member participation into a truly bustling community where users worldwide (regardless of time zone or time of day) can always find others to talk to and gain support from.
- Expand dive program membership worldwide to 100 active members.
- Launch our self-study classroom with at least 10 free basic courses that are utilized by students around the world, plus more advanced courses for reasonable fees.
- Begin to offer regular in-person live events at locations around the USA to support members.
- Increase the number of blog followers from 20 to over 100.
- Increase the yearly donations from ~$600 in 2017 to over $10,000 in 2018.
- Assemble an even larger volunteer staff, and one that can handle even more responsibility.
- Be able to pay executive director a part-time salary to allow him to focus more time on growing the company.
- Be able to hire a part-time management staff from our already large team of volunteers.
- Gain local and nationwide press coverage for the company.
- Begin using the Salesforce grant to encourage more member participation, higher class enrollment, and greater donation amounts from a greater number of people.
2017 Accomplishments
- Launched our unique coaching, tutoring, and web design programs (November 2017).
- Launched our new multi-page website (Novermber 2017), which you are looking at right now.
- Applied for a received a grant in the amount of $1,500/month from Salesforce, affording us 10 enterprise licenses per month.
- Increased online membership in our free community from 0 to 3,400 worldwide, with members located in over 45 countries.
- Recruited over 25 volunteers to work with the company, in accounting, web design, app development, foreign language instruction, coaching, publicity, and management.
- Helped over 200 individuals worldwide find (on a one-on-one basis) career guidance, motivation, encouragement, and life direction through our online community.
- Launched the Break Diving Personal & Business Success Blog, which now has more than 50 articles, 20 followers, and readers from more than 50 countries worldwide.
- Held three live in-person Break Diving events in the New York City area, with attendance ranging from as few as two people to as many as six.
- Raised over $400 in donations from eight different individual supporters, and still growing.
- Applied for a received a grant in the amount of $10,000/month from Google, affording us incredible advertising reach each month.
- Gained tax-exempt status from the IRS.
- Registered as a foreign corporation doing business in New York.
2016 Accomplishments
- Started the corporation in Delaware.
- Completed all paperwork for the IRS and New York State
- Assembled a board of directors.
- Launched the original one-page website.
Legal & tax documents
Public documents previously published on this site, including founding records, exemption letters, and annual filings. The archive is not a representation that every subsequent year is included.
Browse and download the document archive
General Legal Documents
Fast Company License, "The Brand Called You"Photo Credits
Homepage mountain photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash. Used by permission of copyright holder via an unlimited perpetual Unsplash license. See all photo credits.
Founding Documents
Approved IRS Form 1034- DESCRIPTION: This is our complete application for tax exemption from the IRS.
- Form 1034
- Delaware Corporation Founding Documents
- Founding ByLaws
- Additional Supplemental Information
- DESCRIPTION: This is the letter from the IRS approving our application, and approving our tax exempt status backdated to September 2016.
- DESCRIPTION: This is the letter from NY State approving our tax exempt status in New York state, backdated to September 2016.
2025
Electronic Notice (e-Postcard) for tax year 2025. This is the informational record copy supplied to us, not an IRS acceptance receipt.
2024
Electronic Notice (e-Postcard) for tax year 2024. This is the informational record copy supplied to us, not an IRS acceptance receipt.
2023
Electronic Notice (e-Postcard) for tax year 2023. This is the informational record copy supplied to us, not an IRS acceptance receipt.
2022
Electronic Notice (e-Postcard) for tax year 2022. This is the informational record copy supplied to us, not an IRS acceptance receipt.
2021
IRS Form 990-N document not yet available in this archive.
2020
- DESCRIPTION: While a 501(c)(3) organization is exempt from paying income taxes, we are still required to submit paperwork to the IRS each year by May 15 for the previous year. This is a receipt confirming that the paperwork has been filed for tax year 2020. We chose to file Form 990-N, for organizations with less than $50,000 in annual receipts.
2019
- DESCRIPTION: While a 501(c)(3) organization is exempt from paying income taxes, we are still required to submit paperwork to the IRS each year by May 15 for the previous year. This is a receipt confirming that the paperwork has been filed for tax year 2019. We chose to file Form 990-N, for organizations with less than $50,000 in annual receipts.
2018
View 2018 IRS Form 990-N
- DESCRIPTION: While a 501(c)(3) organization is exempt from paying income taxes, we are still required to submit paperwork to the IRS each year by May 15 for the previous year. This is the filed paperwork for tax year 2018. We chose to file Form 990-N, for organizations with less than $50,000 in annual receipts.
2017
View 2017 IRS Form 990-N
- DESCRIPTION: While a 501(c)(3) organization is exempt from paying income taxes, we are still required to submit paperwork to the IRS each year by May 15 for the previous year. This is the filed paperwork for tax year 2017. We chose to file Form 990-N, for organizations with less than $50,000 in annual receipts. For this reason, we did not have to file all of the schedules that we filed last year.
2016
View 2016 IRS Form 990EZ
- DESCRIPTION: While a 501(c)(3) organization is exempt from paying income taxes, we are still required to fill this form once a year by May 15 for the previous year. This is the filed paperwork for tax year 2016.
- Form 990 EZ
- Schedule A (Public Charity Status)
- Schedule C (Political Campaign & Lobbying Activities)
- Schedule L (Transactions With Interested Persons)
- Schedule O (Supplemental Information to Form 990EZ)