Illinois · Nonprofit
HALFTHESTORY
HALFTHESTORY (Illinois) receives grants from 26 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,765,618 to it, the largest being PIVOTAL PHILANTHROPIES FOUNDATION ($1,000,000). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 55% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.6M
- Funders on record
- 26
- Grants received
- $3.8M
- Net assets
- $1.3M
What Halfthestory does
Mission
#Halfthestory's mission is to empower the next generation's relationship with social media through advocacy, education, and providing access to resources for youth. We believe in digital wellbeing.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Through our advocacy, education, and research programs we have been able to reach a wide audience with our mission of improving digital wellbeing. We have launched social media u, an educational program that has reached over 2,500 teens to empower them to develop healthy relationships with technology. From this program, we also hosted focus groups with teens of all backgrounds to help better understand their challenges. We launched story squad, which is a resident group of teen creators to create content for our channel. We also host an annual global day of unplugging, an advocacy holiday that celebrates a 24-hour period of collective presences and reflection. This holiday is observed with youth, schools, community organizations, and influencers around the world and has a reach of over 50,000,000 users, 50,000 pledges, 60 influencers, and 20 brands and ngo partners in 10 countries
$2,003,440 spentof which $250,000 as grants$8,600 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $2,003,440.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2021, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2021, 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 2023 to 2024, from $321k to $1.3M (+307%).
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.
98% of HALFTHESTORY’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 5 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
Larissa May
Executive director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2019 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 10 funders, grant income rose $10k → $581k.
10 of 26 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 55% 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 HALFTHESTORY’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
HALFTHESTORY has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 27% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
61% 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 HALFTHESTORY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2019 100% · 2021 89% · 2022 45% · 2023 31% — 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
22% of HALFTHESTORY's funders are still giving 1 year after their first grant; 19% 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
55% of HALFTHESTORY'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 $1.7M that is directly attributable, 99% of it comes from funders outside Illinois, across 9 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.1M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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
HALFTHESTORY has grown faster than three-quarters of the 4,665 health nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 4,665 health nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like HALFTHESTORY
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 Illinois
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
99%
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 HALFTHESTORY: 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 HALFTHESTORY?
- HALFTHESTORY (Illinois) receives grants from 26 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,765,618 to it, the largest being PIVOTAL PHILANTHROPIES FOUNDATION ($1,000,000). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 55% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does HALFTHESTORY have?
- IRS filings report 26 organizations giving $3,765,618 in grants to HALFTHESTORY, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of HALFTHESTORY?
- PIVOTAL PHILANTHROPIES FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,000,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like HALFTHESTORY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Illinois. 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 2021–2025), and the filings of 26 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