California · Nonprofit
Community of Writers
Community of Writers (California) receives grants from 21 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,172,790 to it, the largest being LAFETRA FOUNDATION ($480,000). 14 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $1.2M
- Funders on record
- 21
- Grants received
- $1.2M
- Net assets
- $1.5M
What Community of Writers does
Mission
The Community of Writers, established in 1969, assists talented writers with diverse cultural perspectives to achieve their goals in the genres they pursue. The Community of Writers flagship summer workshops meet in Olympic Valley in the California Sierra Nevada, and are highly selective, with an average of 40-50% of applicants invited to attend. Through the interplay of talented participants, publishing professionals and established writers in a community atmosphere, fiction writers are assisted in their arduous journey from writer to author, and poets achieve a resonant framework for their collected words. In an atmosphere of camaraderie and respect, the Community of Writers seeks to create excellence and community. Participants travel from all over the country, and the world, to attend. The Community of Writers also serves the West California, Nevada, and the Tahoe-Truckee region area in particularas an active literary and media arts center, providing access to readings, talks and f
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
The Writers Workshops in Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir meet annually and offer talented writers small, manuscript-focused workshops, individual conferences, panel discussions and talks on the craft and business of writing. The program runs for 7 days and allows each participant the opportunity to have numerous readers - fellow participants, the staff writers, literary agents, as well as book and magazine editors engage with and evaluate their writing. In addition to teaching and appearing on panels, visiting staff authors give readings from their own work, and socialize with attendees during communal dinners and other extracurricular activities. We see past participants names in some of this countrys foremost journals and prizes, indeed dozens of alumni books of fiction, memoir or nonfiction are published. CW has a long tradition of inviting talented published alums to teach and/or serve on our Board of Directors or other leadership positions.
$391,471 spent$360,567 earned by the program49% of program spendingThe Virtual Valley, established in 2020 in response to the pandemic lockdown, continues as a place for online workshops, intensives, individual manuscript consultations and more. It has developed as a broader, community-building wing of CW, where the practices of writing and reading can be developed year-round. The Writers Annex, established in 2021, offers quarterly courses on literary masters and movements. Its goal is to offer a space where esteemed poets and writers can teach courses that would otherwise not get taught. Instructors are encouraged to find oblique avenues into common subjects, or to bring understudied forms, poets, authors or movements to a new audience.
$201,403 spent$219,628 earned by the program25% of program spendingThe Poetry Workshop, first established in 1983 by founder Galway Kinnell, is one of the most important workshops in the country, and one of the first to offer a generative format, as opposed to a strictly editorial one. The model is this: Each poet (participant or teaching staff) writes a new poem-draft every day for discussion in the morning workshops. The idea is that these are drafts and not completed works, and that the discussions must work to find what is working, and not dwell on what isnt. The workshop week may change poets approach to poetry, helping participants break through old habits and write something which may have previously been out of reach. Alumni names can be seen in some of this countrys foremost journals and prizes; indeed, each year brings many new alumni collections. Numerous past participants have returned to teach over the years.
$200,539 spent$208,695 earned by the program25% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $793,413.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2020 to 2021, from $1.1M to $1.4M (+29%).
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: 2020 8% · 2021 5%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 8 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 5 funders to 7 funders, grant income rose $92k → $140k.
8 of 21 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 32% 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 Community of Writers’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
Community of Writers leans on a few funders — its largest provides 41% of grant income and the top three 61%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
44% 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 Community of Writers.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 55% · 2018 35% · 2019 42% · 2020 33% · 2021 58% · 2022 65% · 2023 72% — 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.
How long its funders stay
43% of Community of Writers's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 67% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
98% of Community of Writers's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $373k arriving through sponsors registered in 5 states 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.
Organizations like Community of Writers
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 California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
79% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
85%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Community of Writers: 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 Community of Writers?
- Community of Writers (California) receives grants from 21 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,172,790 to it, the largest being LAFETRA FOUNDATION ($480,000). 14 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Community of Writers have?
- IRS filings report 21 organizations giving $1,172,790 in grants to Community of Writers, 14 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Community of Writers?
- LAFETRA FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $480,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Community of Writers find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Community of Writers →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 21 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