Montana · Nonprofit
Humanities Montana
Humanities Montana (Montana) receives grants from 11 organizations whose IRS filings report $420,444 to it, the largest being FEDERATION OF STATE HUMANITIES COUNCILS ($309,293). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.1M
- Funders on record
- 11
- Grants received
- $420k
- Net assets
- $665k
What Humanities Montana does
Mission
Humanities Montana serves communities through stories and conversation. We offer experiences that nurture imagination and ideas by speaking to Montanans diverse history, literature, and philosophy.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
On its FY2025 return the organization reported a significant change in how it conducts a program.
During FY2025, Humanities Montana experienced significant changes in its program services following the termination of its National Endowment for the Humanities General Operating Support award on April 2, 2025. As a result, statewide grantmaking, Montana Conversations, and Speakers in the Schools were discontinued during the fiscal year. The Montana Center for the Book and Montana Poet Laureate programs were placed on pause in April 2025, with limited programming resuming in the following fiscal year after new funding was secured. The Democracy Project program continued throughout this transition and remained Humanities Montana's primary statewide public humanities program. The organization focused its limited resources on sustaining this initiative while restructuring operations and securing new public and private funding to restore additional programs in FY2026.
Its own explanation, from Schedule O of that return (Part III, line 3).
GRANTMAKING - Humanities Montana's Grantmaking program awarded grants to nonprofit organizations, libraries, museums, schools, tribal nations, scholars, and community organizations to support public humanities programming throughout Montana. During FY2025, Humanities Montana awarded grants to 25 organizations and scholars, including eight first-time grant recipients. Approximately 52% of subawards supported organizations serving communities with populations under 5,000, including American Indian communities. Grant-funded projects advanced public engagement with Montana history, literature, civic participation, cultural preservation, and Indigenous knowledge.
$170,698 spentof which $69,012 as grants52% of program spendingSPEAKERS BUREAU - Humanities Montana's Speakers Bureau, consisting of Montana Conversations, and Speakers in the Schools, connected communities across Montana with scholars, historians, authors, tribal educators, and other humanities practitioners. During FY2025, the program completed 108 bookings, resulting in 150 presentations that reached 7,989 participants statewide. Programs were presented in libraries, museums, schools, and community organizations, with 67% occurring in rural communities, including American Indian communities. Following the April 2, 2025 termination of Humanities Montana's General Operating Support grant, 46 Montana Conversations programs and 31 Speakers in the Schools visits were canceled, reducing statewide programming until partial federal funding was restored in June 2025.
$68,815 spent21% of program spendingGeneral Council Management - expenses represent shared programmatic activities that support Humanities Montana's statewide public humanities mission across all programs and are not directly allocable to a single program service. Consistent with Humanities Montana's Profit & Loss by Class report, this amount includes payroll and related employee benefits associated with program management, planning, coordination, administration, and oversight across all programs, as well as other shared program service costs. These expenses are classified as Program Services and do not include Management and General or Fundraising expenses.
$58,839 spent18% of program spendingDEMOCRACY PROJECT - Humanities Montana's Democracy Project is a nonpartisan civic education initiative that partners with public libraries to strengthen civic literacy and democratic participation through humanities-based programming. During FY2025, the program operated in 13 Montana communities, including seven full program sites and six developing sites. Teen participants met over the course of six months to identify community needs, develop civic engagement projects, collaborate with local leaders, and present their work through public community showcases. Projects addressed issues including mental health, traffic safety, environmental stewardship, school improvement, voting rights, and community spaces, strengthening youth leadership and civic participation across Montana.
$27,802 spent9% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $326,154.
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 2024 to 2025, from $425k to $687k (+62%).
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 83% · 2018 84% · 2019 70% · 2020 82% · 2021 95% · 2022 94% · 2023 80% · 2024 95% · 2025 58%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2018 and FY2019, and between the FY2019 and FY2020, and between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base held at 3 funders, grant income fell $51k → $7k.
3 of 11 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 9% 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 Humanities Montana’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 10 of 11 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
Humanities Montana leans on a few funders — its largest provides 74% of grant income and the top three 91%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
83% 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 Humanities Montana.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 59% · 2018 97% · 2019 76% · 2020 97% · 2021 77% · 2022 77% · 2023 78% — 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.
How long its funders stay
50% of Humanities Montana's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 45% 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
Humanities Montana draws 82% of its grant income from funders outside Montana, across 3 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $39k 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.
Government funding Humanities Montana receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $8.1M on record.
- National Endowment for the Humanities$8.1M
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 Humanities Montana
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 Montana
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
41% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Humanities Montana: 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 Humanities Montana?
- Humanities Montana (Montana) receives grants from 11 organizations whose IRS filings report $420,444 to it, the largest being FEDERATION OF STATE HUMANITIES COUNCILS ($309,293). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Humanities Montana have?
- IRS filings report 11 organizations giving $420,444 in grants to Humanities Montana, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Humanities Montana?
- FEDERATION OF STATE HUMANITIES COUNCILS is the largest funder on record, with $309,293 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Humanities Montana find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Montana. 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 2017–2025), and the filings of 11 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing