Mississippi · Nonprofit
DEEP SOUTH TODAY
DEEP SOUTH TODAY (Mississippi) receives grants from 56 organizations whose IRS filings report $21,501,207 to it, the largest being The Ford Foundation ($4,750,000). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year.
Against its field
DEEP SOUTH TODAY runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 5,123 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 5,123 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Three funders worth looking at
Grantmakers with no record of funding this organization, ranked by how strongly the co-funder graph and the mission embeddings agree. The evidence is in section 03.
- Democracy Fund Incshared funders
- The Groundtruth Project Incportfolio match
- Fund for Investigative Journalism Incportfolio match
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. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
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: 2021 5%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
96% of DEEP SOUTH TODAY’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (64% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 9 funders to 24 funders, grant income rose $1.0M → $4.0M.
11 of 56 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 23% 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 DEEP SOUTH TODAY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 56 funders by total. 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
DEEP SOUTH TODAY has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 22% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
34% 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 DEEP SOUTH TODAY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 50% · 2018 32% · 2019 25% · 2020 27% · 2021 37% · 2022 34% · 2023 19% — diversifying over time.
“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
33% of DEEP SOUTH TODAY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 52% 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
DEEP SOUTH TODAY draws 71% of its grant income from funders outside Mississippi, across 14 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $4.9M arriving through sponsors registered in 10 statesis 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.
Funders to approach
Grantmakers that don’t fund you yet, surfaced two ways: they back organizations that share your funders, or their grantees resemble your mission. The ones both signals agree on come first. Your 56 funders put you under-funded among the 400 organizations that share them.
- Democracy Fund Incshared fundersDC · backs 79 organizations that share your funders
- The Groundtruth Project Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Fund for Investigative Journalism Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- American Press Institute Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Solutions Journalism Network Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Local Independent Online News Publishers Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Int'L Center for Journalists Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Regions Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Heising-Simons Foundationshared fundersCA · backs 137 organizations that share your funders
- Freedom Together Foundationshared fundersNY · backs 111 organizations that share your funders
- Laura and John Arnold Foundationshared fundersTX · backs 86 organizations that share your funders
- Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Incshared fundersNY · backs 77 organizations that share your funders
From the co-funder graph (funders backing at least two comparable organizations, shrunk for grantee count, donor-advised and mega-funds excluded) and the universe embeddings. A research starting point; overlap is association, not a guarantee of fit.
Organizations like DEEP SOUTH TODAY
Nonprofits whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over the universe of US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Mississippi
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
67% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
92%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 39 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for DEEP SOUTH TODAY: 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. How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds DEEP SOUTH TODAY?
- DEEP SOUTH TODAY (Mississippi) receives grants from 56 organizations whose IRS filings report $21,501,207 to it, the largest being The Ford Foundation ($4,750,000). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does DEEP SOUTH TODAY have?
- IRS filings report 56 organizations giving $21,501,207 in grants to DEEP SOUTH TODAY, 29 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of DEEP SOUTH TODAY?
- The Ford Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $4,750,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like DEEP SOUTH TODAY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Mississippi. 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 2017–2024), and the filings of 56funders 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 August 27, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing