Missouri · Nonprofit
HUMANS OF ST LOUIS
HUMANS OF ST LOUIS (Missouri) receives grants from 6 organizations whose IRS filings report $67,530 to it, the largest being REGIONAL CULTURAL AND PERFORMING ARTS DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION ($50,000). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $102k
- Funders on record
- 6
- Grants received
- $68k
- Net assets
- $61k
What Humans of St Louis does
Mission
Humans of St. Louis is a non-profit with the mission of sharing photographic portraits and first-person stories to highlight local needs, issues, and experiences from people in the St. Louis region.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
COLLABORATIONS: The majority of our teams time and effort is spent collaborating with other companies who approach Humans of St. Louis for storytelling services. In exchange for payment, we partner to produce original creative content specific to a particular theme such as health, equity, neighborhood, or the arts. In the past, weve done interviews and photographs in our signature style for BJC CAREERS, Forward Through Ferguson, St. Louis Housing Authority, and STL Made. Content posts to our social media following of 165,000 viewers on Facebook and Instagram.
PRESENTATIONS: Our storytellers give presentations and do panel talks at schools and businesses about the art of storytelling at the intersection of social work and public health. They teach how to ask deeper questions, invite people to tell their stories, conduct interviews, photograph strangers, edit content, post to socials, moderate comments, and market their work. They talk about how Humans of St. Louis began as an art project and morphed into a nonprofit with a team of up to 15 contributors. This year we presented to WashU Med School, SSM Health, MICDS, and Special School District of St. Louis County.
EXHIBITIONS BOOK SALES: In order to promote a longer life span and play time for the creative content, we also print and frame our photostories to enhance community spaces with gallery shows of our work. Weve displayed exhibits at universities, high schools, libraries, churches, art galleries, the airport, and peoples homes. This year, we had shows on display at WashU, SLU, St. Peters UCC Resource Center, and Webster Arts. We also sell our book from our second print run at various stores and events, like markets and presentations, and in bulk to businesses and educational institutions.
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense.
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 2022 to 2023, from $54k to $64k (+18%).
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: 2023 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
14% of HUMANS OF ST LOUIS’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue 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 4 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2018 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 2 funders, grant income rose $6k → $50k.
2 of 6 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 10% 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 HUMANS OF ST LOUIS’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
HUMANS OF ST LOUIS leans on a few funders — its largest provides 74% of grant income and the top three 98%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
98% 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 HUMANS OF ST LOUIS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2018 100% · 2019 97% · 2022 100% · 2023 100% — broadly stable.
“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
84% of HUMANS OF ST LOUIS's grant income comes from Missouri funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $7k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 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
HUMANS OF ST LOUIS is better cushioned than half of the 11,634 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 11,634 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like HUMANS OF ST LOUIS
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 Missouri
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
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 HUMANS OF ST LOUIS: 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 HUMANS OF ST LOUIS?
- HUMANS OF ST LOUIS (Missouri) receives grants from 6 organizations whose IRS filings report $67,530 to it, the largest being REGIONAL CULTURAL AND PERFORMING ARTS DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION ($50,000). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does HUMANS OF ST LOUIS have?
- IRS filings report 6 organizations giving $67,530 in grants to HUMANS OF ST LOUIS, 1 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of HUMANS OF ST LOUIS?
- REGIONAL CULTURAL AND PERFORMING ARTS DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION is the largest funder on record, with $50,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like HUMANS OF ST LOUIS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Missouri. 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 Humans of St Louis →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2022–2025), and the filings of 6 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