143
Apple-platform apps
across 5 learning verticals; all free, all on-device.
The work, in numbers.
Spark & Anvil's mission shows up as code, curriculum kits, character casts, and trauma-informed design discipline. Here's the current state of the portfolio.
Updated each rebuild · last build 2026-07-07. We don't track kids — these stats are about what we built and what we ship, not what kids do inside our apps.
68
Books shipped
68 also in Advanced Edition
1,776
Chapters published
1703K words
1055
Cast portraits
1003 characters authored
774
Audio dramas live
WCAG-AA WebVTT transcripts
68
Books with cover art
Hand-rendered by Gemini Nano Banana Pro
143
Apps in the portfolio
143 use cast-as-curriculum
Newest this week
12 books added or refreshed in the past 7 days. Auto-detected by build mtime.
Shipped this month
- Seasonal-aware homepage hero + Sub-axis 4 (summer / Halloween / winter-break / back-to-school)
- Newsletter signup in footer + RSS link discoverability (Sub-axis 2)
- Live counters strip on /method (Sub-axis 7)
- RSS / Atom feed at /feed.xml (50 most-recent books)
- ReadingShelf widget — localStorage-only collection / badges (COPPA-safe)
- Kid-voice homepage band + daily-rotating "Today's featured book"
- Real cover artwork on /books grid (118 standard + 118 advanced)
- 663 illustrated chapter-book pages at /cast/<app>/<char> + /stories aggregate
Coming next month
Targets are public so the roadmap is auditable. Curated each month; rebuilds at the start of each window.
- Cast portrait gen unlocked for the trauma-aware cluster (~123 portraits across ~25 apps)
- DN-S Phase 2 audio drama rollout — ~30 dramas (hero characters)
- Spark & Anvil logo refresh + brand guidelines v2 publish
- Public summer-reading "carnival" landing — themed cover sort + family activity guides
- First foundation grant cycle close (Schmidt Futures / CZI / Heising-Simons)
- Back-to-school content register flip + classroom-ready educator drop
143
apps with a named cast
100% portfolio coverage — every app has recurring characters that embody curricular concepts.
1003
characters site-visible
across the portfolio; each character carries one specific learnable thing.
6
apps ship pass-and-play
today; ~111 more on the roadmap (~80% portfolio ceiling).
21
curriculum frameworks
mapped across the portfolio (NGSS / CCSS / NCAS / C3 / ISTE + 16 more).
80
trauma-informed gates
established (SAMHSA TIP 57) for apps touching heavy content; external review for the strictest set.
0
ads · IAPs · trackers
shipped across the portfolio. By construction.
100
% free, forever
guaranteed via the non-profit pivot.
iOS 26
native build target
Swift 6, SwiftUI, SpriteKit, FoundationModels on-device.
How we sustain the work
Spark & Anvil is a 501(c)(3) non-profit (pending). We're funded by foundation grants, school/district licensing, and individual donations — never by ads, in-app purchases, or child-data monetization.
Ongoing operational cost runs at approximately $500/month minimum:
| Bucket | Approximate / month |
|---|---|
| Anthropic Claude Max (2 subscriptions — research, planning, content authoring) | ~$400 |
| Gemini API (cast art, illustrations, audio gen — when generating; varies) | ~$30-60 |
| Apple Developer Program (annualized) | ~$8 |
| Cloudflare Pages + Email Routing | free tier |
| Domain registration (.com + .org annualized) | ~$2.50 |
| Mailchimp / Listmonk (email list) | free tier |
| Plausible Analytics (privacy-first) | ~$9 |
| Brand-asset + infrastructure buffer + one-offs | ~$30-50 |
| Total minimum | ~$500/month |
Excludes one-time / occasional expenses: outside legal for IRS Form 1023 (~$1,500-$3,000 one-time, future) · fiscal-sponsor pass-through fees (5-7% of donations, future) · external sensitivity reviewers (~$300-$1,500 per app, engaged when reviewer-gated apps reach asset gen). These will be itemized on the FY26 annual report.
We're intentionally lean — no full-time employees, no office, no marketing budget, no consultants on retainer. Founder time is unpaid through pre-determination phase. Every $25 monthly donor covers ~5% of the platform cost. Every $5 monthly donor covers ~1%.
Through 2026, founder Nathan Tran has personally bridged this cost — investing approximately $3,000 from personal savings to bring the portfolio to its current state (140 apps · 586 cast portraits · 4 brand-logo concepts · 55,200 question kits authored · on-device AI architecture proved out). The non-profit pivot shifts that bridge from personal savings to donor + foundation revenue. (Audited breakdown publishes with the FY26 annual report.)
When IRS Form 1023 determination clears (anticipated Q4 2027), monthly operating costs will rise to absorb part-time community manager + legal + audit + foundation grant management — projected $5,000-$10,000/month at Year-3 scale. Donor + foundation revenue will cover that growth.
The pivot is not about raising money for a person — it is about making the mission durable beyond any one person's bank account.
How we count
- Apps shipped = production-track portfolio repos (see /apps for the full inventory).
- Kids reached — we will publish this number annually using anonymized App Store install counts. We don't track usage inside apps. We don't know which kid opened which app on which date. That's by design.
- Trauma-informed gates — counted as the number of apps that ship a documented sensitivity posture per SAMHSA TIP 57.
- Curriculum frameworks — mapped against NGSS / CCSS-Math / CCSS-ELA / NCAS / C3 / ISTE + 16 others.
Our first annual report will publish at end of fiscal year 2026 with revenue, expenses, board, partners, app-install counts, and audit findings.
Support the mission →