Ohio · Nonprofit
IDEASTREAM
IDEASTREAM (Ohio) receives grants from 157 organizations whose IRS filings report $36,935,456 to it, the largest being CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING ($26,654,814). 108 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $28M
- Funders on record
- 157
- Grants received
- $37M
- Net assets
- $86M
What Ideastream does
Mission
Ideastream is the home to northeast ohio's member-supported public broadcasting services wviz, wksu, wclv, and jazzneo. In addition to highly trusted pbs and npr programming, Ideastream is the community's source for award-winning journalism, inspiring stories, and quality entertainment.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
See schedule oIdeastream public media ("Ideastream") is an ohio nonprofit corporation. Publicly supported and locally owned, Ideastream's mission is to be a trusted and dynamic multimedia source for illuminating the world around us. Ideastream services include wviz/pbs, with five channels of public television service; wksu, northeast ohio's npr news and information radio service; wclv, northeast ohio's classical music radio service; jazzneo, northeast ohio's local jazz music radio service; Ideastream education, with educational resources, services and the award-winning children's series newsdepth; and management of the ohio channel, the ohio public radio and television statehouse news bureau and the ohio newsroom on behalf of all ohio's public media stations. Through television, radio, digital and in-person experiences, Ideastream engages with 4 million people in a typical month. Ideastream's free, trusted coverage focuses on four core services: news and information, arts and entertainment, classical and jazz music, and education.
$18,736,644 spent$2,715,746 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $18,736,644.
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. 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 $47M to $86M (+83%).
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 15% · 2018 19% · 2019 27% · 2020 41% · 2021 34% · 2022 31% · 2023 29% · 2024 12% · 2025 25%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
84% of IDEASTREAM’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (78% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 6 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.
Chief executive
Kevin Emartin
President and CEO
Board chair
David D Legeay
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2024 and FY2025 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 25 funders to 82 funders, grant income rose $3.6M → $3.8M.
22 of 157 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 8% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $8.9M from 13 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest The Cleveland Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money IDEASTREAM raised.
From the IRS filings of IDEASTREAM’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 157 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
IDEASTREAM leans on a few funders — its largest provides 72% of grant income and the top three 80%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
81% 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 IDEASTREAM.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 77% · 2018 79% · 2019 70% · 2020 69% · 2021 73% · 2022 69% · 2023 71% — 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
56% of IDEASTREAM's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 69% 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
IDEASTREAM draws 80% of its grant income from funders outside Ohio, across 20 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $3.0M arriving through sponsors registered in 13 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
IDEASTREAM runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 144 youth development nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 144 youth development nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Organizations like IDEASTREAM
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 Ohio
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
71% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
94%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- One Playhouse Square Investors Ltd · partnership
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for IDEASTREAM: 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 IDEASTREAM?
- IDEASTREAM (Ohio) receives grants from 157 organizations whose IRS filings report $36,935,456 to it, the largest being CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING ($26,654,814). 108 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does IDEASTREAM have?
- IRS filings report 157 organizations giving $36,935,456 in grants to IDEASTREAM, 108 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of IDEASTREAM?
- CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING is the largest funder on record, with $26,654,814 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like IDEASTREAM find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Ohio. 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 Ideastream →
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 157 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