California · Nonprofit
Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival
Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival (California) receives grants from 10 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,182,600 to it, the largest being STEPHEN M SILBERSTEIN FOUNDATION ($875,000). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 54% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $694k
- Funders on record
- 10
- Grants received
- $2.2M
- Net assets
- $37k
What Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival does
Mission
The Bay Area Book Festival celebrates a wide spectrum of literary voices, nurtures literary culture and community, cultivates literacy, and promotes great literary work, with special attention to work that engages with pressing social issues.We carry out our mission by creating relevant, thoughtful programming that we present at an annual, inclusive, weekend literary festival and in year-round literary events. The Festival features dozens of keynotes, interviews, panels and performances by hundreds of notable writers across literary genres and backgrounds. The festival also includes a robust outdoor fair with hundreds of literary exhibitors and a range of childrens activities.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
During FY 2425, the Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival produced its 11th annual festival, held May 31June 1, 2025 in downtown Berkeley, themed Changing the Narrative. The 2025 theme invited attendees to consider how narratives shape what is possible in our communities, encouraging people to rethink dominant stories, bridge divides, and imagine more just futures through literature. Across the weekend the festival offered more than 80 events and over 240 invited speakers in Inside Ideas conversations, Democracy Dialogues, Family Day programming, writers workshops, and a large outdoor Bookworm Block Party with 120+ exhibitors including bookstores, small presses, literary organizations, and community partners. Press coverage and festival materials highlighted headliners and widely known participants such as Piper Kerman, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Alka Joshi, and Prentis Hemphill, along with a range of legends and emerging voices whose work engages incarceration, refugee experience, diaspora, healing justice, and narrative change. Programming foregrounded social justice and collective care, with panels on mutual aid, democracy, racial and gender…
$680,563 spent$70,670 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $680,563.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2019, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2019, 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 2021 to 2022, from $422k to $138k (−67%).
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: 2019 1% · 2021 29% · 2022 9% · 2023 2% · 2024 11% · 2025 8%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
90% of Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (64% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 6 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.
Board chair
Piper Kerman
Board Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base held at 4 funders, grant income rose $218k → $329k.
5 of 10 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 54% 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 Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival’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
Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival leans on a few funders — its largest provides 40% of grant income and the top three 90%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
57% 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 Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 80% · 2018 43% · 2019 50% · 2020 43% · 2021 75% · 2022 45% · 2023 46% — 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
44% of Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 80% 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
54% of Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival'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 $1.0M that is directly attributable, 96% of it comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.2M arriving through sponsors registered in 4 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.
Against its field
Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival's revenue fell 43% between 2019 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 11,634 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival
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
90% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
53%
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 Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival: 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 Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival?
- Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival (California) receives grants from 10 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,182,600 to it, the largest being STEPHEN M SILBERSTEIN FOUNDATION ($875,000). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 54% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival have?
- IRS filings report 10 organizations giving $2,182,600 in grants to Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival, 8 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival?
- STEPHEN M SILBERSTEIN FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $875,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Foundation for the Future of Literature and Literacy dba Bay Area Book Festival 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.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2019–2025), and the filings of 10 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