South Dakota · Nonprofit
CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT
CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT (South Dakota) receives grants from 3 organizations whose IRS filings report $18,500 to it, the largest being BLACK HILLS AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($10,000). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 89% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $631k
- Funders on record
- 3
- Grants received
- $19k
- Net assets
- $4.8M
What Custer Volunteer Fire Department does
Mission
Fire protection
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
To protect the citizens and visitors of the city of custer and custer county by preventing or minimizing injury and loss of life or property resulting from fire or other emergencies, natural or person caused. The department responded to approximately 242 calls in 2025.
$374,806 spent$32,689 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $374,806.
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 2022 to 2023, from $3.2M to $3.9M (+22%).
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: 2017 36% · 2018 27% · 2019 57% · 2020 63% · 2021 40% · 2022 42% · 2023 50% · 2024 44% · 2025 47%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 9 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
2022 → 2023: the base held at 1 funder, grant income fell $10k → $1k.
2 of 3 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 89% 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 CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT’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
CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT leans on a few funders — its largest provides 54% of grant income and the top three 100%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
89% 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 CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2022 100% · 2023 100% — broadly stable.
“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
89% of CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $2k that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from South Dakota funders.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $17k 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.
Government funding CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $14k on record.
- Approved Program Reimbursement$14k
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 CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT
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 South Dakota
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
87% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT: 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 CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT?
- CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT (South Dakota) receives grants from 3 organizations whose IRS filings report $18,500 to it, the largest being BLACK HILLS AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($10,000). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 89% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT have?
- IRS filings report 3 organizations giving $18,500 in grants to CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT, 1 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT?
- BLACK HILLS AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $10,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CUSTER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in South Dakota. 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 Custer Volunteer Fire Department →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 3 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