Ohio · Nonprofit
ACTIVATING CHANGE INC
ACTIVATING CHANGE INC (Ohio) receives grants from 7 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,445,294 to it, the largest being VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE INC ($4,766,171). 3 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $4.4M
- Funders on record
- 7
- Grants received
- $6.4M
- Net assets
- $2.6M
What Activating Change Inc does
Mission
To end victimization, criminalization, incarceration, and institutionalization of people with disabilities and deaf people. Activating change fosters alignment, builds capacity, and supports greater coordination across social justice movements to realize its goals of freedom and healing - not harm and punishment - for people with disabilities and deaf people.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Creating pathways to healing: this year, we supported 40 multidisciplinary collaborations across the country providing sustained assistance to redesign local responses to survivors with disabilities. We trained 2,830 professionals and delivered 832 high-touch consultations to help frontline advocates respond to survivors' complex needs. We also developed trauma-informed tools and guidance on forensic interviewing, trafficking, and barrier removal. This body of work is shifting how the field understands and responds to survivors with disabilities.
$1,703,237 spentof which $128,314 as grants$12,242 earned by the program50% of program spendingExpanding deaf services and advocacy: we trained 291 deaf advocates and delivered 128 tailored consultations rooted in language justice and healing. We supported 116 hearing providers to become more culturally responsive and trauma informed. Most significantly, we facilitated asl interpretation for more than 80 victim service organizations removing a critical access barrier and expanding deaf survivors' ability to receive services. We also laid the foundation both in design and partnerships to establish a new, national "for deaf, by deaf" victim services program that will provide virtual crisis intervention and long-term advocacy and support to deaf victims who live throughout the country in communities without in-person deaf services.
$982,817 spentof which $81,944 as grants$1,706 earned by the program29% of program spendingEnding criminalization and incarceration: through our defending access initiative, we expanded partnerships and deepened engagement in the public defense space. We presented at two in-person national conferences, delivered 13 trainings across four states reaching over 400 justice system professionals, and hosted a virtual event alongside the release of a co-authored white paper on the overrepresentation of people with disabilities and deaf people in local criminal legal systems. In summer 2025, we released two practical toolkits, defending access and supporting access, providing policy considerations to get started, step-by-step guidance, and sample accommodations, modifications, and adjustments for attorneys and community-based organizations. We established a directly impacted advisory council composed of system-impacted individuals with disabilities to guide this work.
$633,749 spent$6,895 earned by the program19% of program spendingHealing behind and beyond barswe continued our long-standing commitment and work to promote sexual safety behind bars. Our work encompassed multiple efforts and strategies to ensure meaningful compliance with the prison rape elimination act (prea) standards, with an emphasis on supporting information and communication access for incarcerated people with disabilities and deaf people. We provided site-based technical assistance and coaching support to 7 local confinement facilities (adult jails, lockups, and community confinement facilities). We also developed resources and provided training to corrections practitioners working in adult prisons and jails across the country.
$69,860 spent2% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $3,389,663.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2022, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2022, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $2.8M to $2.3M (−18%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2023 26% · 2024 49%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of ACTIVATING CHANGE INC’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (51% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 3 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Nancy Smith
President & executive director
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2022 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 4 funders, grant income rose $1.2M → $2.9M.
1 of 7 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 0% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of ACTIVATING CHANGE INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
ACTIVATING CHANGE INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 74% of grant income and the top three 97%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
76% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund ACTIVATING CHANGE INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2022 67% · 2023 76% — growing more concentrated.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Where its funders are
ACTIVATING CHANGE INC draws 100% of its grant income from funders outside Ohio, across 3 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $13k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
ACTIVATING CHANGE INC has grown faster than three-quarters of the 8,121 health nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 8,121 health nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding ACTIVATING CHANGE INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $4.7M on record.
- Department of Justice$4.7M
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like ACTIVATING CHANGE INC
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Ohio
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
91% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 28 states
Part of a family of 3 related entities
- Project Guardianship Inc · exempt
- Vera Action Inc · exempt
- Vera Institute of Justice Inc · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for ACTIVATING CHANGE INC: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds ACTIVATING CHANGE INC?
- ACTIVATING CHANGE INC (Ohio) receives grants from 7 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,445,294 to it, the largest being VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE INC ($4,766,171). 3 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does ACTIVATING CHANGE INC have?
- IRS filings report 7 organizations giving $6,445,294 in grants to ACTIVATING CHANGE INC, 3 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of ACTIVATING CHANGE INC?
- VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE INC is the largest funder on record, with $4,766,171 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like ACTIVATING CHANGE INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Ohio. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2022–2024), and the filings of 7 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing