California · Nonprofit
LAST WHISPERS INC
LAST WHISPERS INC (California) receives grants from 2 organizations whose IRS filings report $975,430 to it, the largest being MJS FOUNDATION INC ($578,430). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $221k
- Funders on record
- 2
- Grants received
- $975k
- Net assets
- $59k
What Last Whispers Inc does
Mission
Last Whispers, Inc. has been formed to bring awareness to the extinction of linguistic diversity around the world and help provide support to language archives, museums and universities in their effort to maintain the history of languages. Last Whispers, Inc. is hoping to achieve their purpose by utilizing audio and visual compilations by numerous award winning composers. These compilations will be presented in museums and language archives and universities. The hope is that the compilations will help educate and make the public aware of the enormity of disappearing languages. Last Whispers, Inc. wants the world to hear and feel the loss of knowledge and origins of 85-90% of languages once spoken in everyday life.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Last Whispers is a multimedia, audio video installation, a public platform and a virtual reality (VR). The project is an ecosystem that explores the global mass extinction of languages. It premiered at the British Museum in London in 2016, and has traveled to Switzerland, Germany, Mexico, France, Brazil, Canada, and throughout the United States. Last Whispers Virtual Reality premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and garnered acclaim and prizes at over twenty major VR festivals around the world. Last Whispers 45 min immersive installation was shown at major concert halls and theaters like The Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and at the opera house in Paris Le Thtre du Chtelet, and also at Le Thtre de la Ville, France. UNESCO has listed it as one of the major programming events in 2019. The New York Times, Le Monde and major media venues were part of the major worldwide discourse about language extinction. More on www.lastwhispers.org
$247,771 spentof which $220,830 as grants100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $247,771.
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 2019 to 2020, from $21k to $160k (+648%).
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.
100% of LAST WHISPERS INC’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations 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. 4 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2018 → 2023: the base held at 1 funder, grant income rose $25k → $208k.
1 of 2 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 41% 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 LAST WHISPERS INC’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
LAST WHISPERS INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 59% of grant income and the top three 100%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
41% 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 LAST WHISPERS INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2018 100% · 2019 100% · 2021 100% · 2022 60% · 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
LAST WHISPERS INC draws 100% of its grant income from funders outside California, across 1 state in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $397k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state 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
LAST WHISPERS INC has grown faster than three-quarters 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 LAST WHISPERS INC
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 California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
100% 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 LAST WHISPERS INC: 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 LAST WHISPERS INC?
- LAST WHISPERS INC (California) receives grants from 2 organizations whose IRS filings report $975,430 to it, the largest being MJS FOUNDATION INC ($578,430). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does LAST WHISPERS INC have?
- IRS filings report 2 organizations giving $975,430 in grants to LAST WHISPERS INC, 2 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of LAST WHISPERS INC?
- MJS FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $578,430 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like LAST WHISPERS INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. 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 Last Whispers →
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 2 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