Virginia · Nonprofit
HEARD
HEARD (Virginia) receives grants from 5 organizations whose IRS filings report $110,656 to it, the largest being ACT FOR ALEXANDRIA ($70,080). 3 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 91% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $70k
- Funders on record
- 5
- Grants received
- $111k
- Net assets
- $29k
What Heard does
Mission
Heard's mission is to foster creativity, confidence, self-worth, and life skills to adults, families, and youth in need who are marginalized, underserved, unknown, and unheard by offering them artistic expression through experiential instruction and participation. We serve those in need. We serve our program partners. We serve artists.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ.
Programs
Heard hires local artists to teach creativity and life skills through art to adults, families, and youth who may be in recovery, survivors of domestic violence or sexual assault, LGBTQA, older adults, immigrant, incarcerated, or transitioning from incarceration or homelessness, through its partnerships with Alexandria and other Northern Virginia area nonprofit and government organizations. We offer acting, creative writing (journaling, memoir writing, and more), dance, etiquette, improvisation, poetry, public speaking, singing, spoken word, and visual art. In 2024 our artists conducted over 250 classes for our program partners serving approximately 2500 people in need. We work with people in need exclusively, and they benefit in powerful and life-changing ways. Heard brings the arts to those who are physically unable to access other art programs offered to the public. The incarcerated cannot leave their facilities for any reason, including to attend or participate in arts events. Program partners and their respective missions include: Alexandria Adult Detention Center, Arlington County Detention Center, Carpenter's Shelter (housing the homeless), Casa Chirilagua (low-income,…
$31,745 spent44% of program spendingOur contracted Executive Director (ED) coordinates all day-to-day operations of Heard to deliver program services, including relationship building, programming, training, ongoing support of program partners and artists, outreach, and budgeting. The ED also facilitates corporate, board, artist, and stakeholder communications as well as fundraises and writes grants. The ED is the nucleus of Heard and the nonprofit would cease to deliver services in the absence of the ED. More specifically, the ED accomplished the following- Program partner support: In 2024 the ED budgeted and delivered over 20 classes per month among our program partners, and developed or maintained a program partner agreement with each. The program partner agreement assigns responsibilities and commitments. The agreement includes desired outcomes for clients, artists, and program partners, and emphasizes that our mission is to foster creativity, not therapy. The agreement also includes statements regarding hold harmless agreements, media releases, access to staff members during programs, evaluations, and professional expectations. It is vital to our mutual success that both artist and client have a positive…
$30,833 spent42% of program spendingIn an effort to better serve our clients, our program partners, and our art team, Heard undertook a strategic planning effort to thoroughly evaluate and improve our processes and procedures, and plan for future expansion. A key result of this effort was to establish standardized outcomes for our clients, our partners, and our organization, allowing us to define success and the tools to quantifiably measure it. The desired outcomes and associated response statements for clients, program partners, and artists were developed in 2022 and are still being used with positive results. We re-evaluated this process in 2024 under the direction of our new ED. We also expanded our outreach to other communities and worked with communities in other localities to use the Heard model and methods to solve their local needs using local artists. This initiative, known as KickstART, was successfully implemented in two rural Ohio communities. One community created a community-driven public art event that was the foundation for a far-reaching arts initiative that has received national recognition. The second program, focused on offering arts to students with mental health challenges, received full…
$10,339 spent14% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $72,917.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2022, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2022, 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 $37k to $29k (−20%).
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.
92% of HEARD’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (65% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 3 reported years ran a deficit.
Leadership and staff
Chief executive
Kelly Carnes
Executive Director
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ.
Who funds it, year by year
2019 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 4 funders, grant income rose $11k → $20k.
3 of 5 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 91% 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 HEARD’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
HEARD leans on a few funders — its largest provides 63% of grant income and the top three 99%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
91% 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 HEARD.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2019 55% · 2020 100% · 2021 99% · 2022 100% · 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.
Where its funders are
91% of HEARD'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 $10k that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from funders outside Virginia, across 2 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $100k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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
HEARD has grown faster than three-quarters of the 21,859 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 21,859 education nonprofits under $100k, FY2024
Government funding HEARD receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $10k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$10k
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 HEARD
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 Virginia
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
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 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for HEARD: 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 HEARD?
- HEARD (Virginia) receives grants from 5 organizations whose IRS filings report $110,656 to it, the largest being ACT FOR ALEXANDRIA ($70,080). 3 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 91% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does HEARD have?
- IRS filings report 5 organizations giving $110,656 in grants to HEARD, 3 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of HEARD?
- ACT FOR ALEXANDRIA is the largest funder on record, with $70,080 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like HEARD find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Virginia. 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 Heard →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2022–2024), and the filings of 5 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