California · Nonprofit
NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC
NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC (California) receives grants from 18 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,209,469 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($620,150). 13 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 73% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $886k
- Funders on record
- 18
- Grants received
- $1.2M
- Net assets
- $996k
What Narrative Magazine Inc does
Mission
Narrative is a reader supported nonprofit dedicated to advancing the literary arts in the digital age and to creating an inclusive, global literary community. We publish work of the highest literary caliber, offer opportunities for both established and emerging writers, host contests in search of a new generation of talent, provide reading and writing resources and mentorship to students and teachers in underserved schools around the globe, and every day, all year we offer our expansive library of thousands of stories, poems, essays, cartoons, and more to readers everywhere for free.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
In fy2024, narrative magazine had 350,000 dedicated subscribers with special and weekly publication of both well-known and emerging writers. Our complete library of works by more than two thousand writers and artists is free of charge and accessible to readers around the world. Narrative published weekly story and poem of the week, held five contests (winter, spring, and fall fiction contests, the sixteenth annual poetry contest, and the ninth annual high school contest), and published hundreds of well-known and emerging artists in 2024.notably, the narrative prize, awarded annually for excellent work published by a new or emerging writer in narrative, was presented to poet madeleine cravens, who received the $5,000 prize. Our free narrative for schools resources and library were used in classrooms in
$658,906 spent$285,275 earned by the program100% of program spendingContinued from part iii, 4amore than forty-one countries and throughout the us. Our free annual high school writing contest reached hundreds of thousands of students and their teachers across the globe. Entries in 2024 came from seoul to krakow to chicago to peru, from charter, public and independent schools across the globe. The 2024 year's prompt, "my note to the world," elicited creative often vulnerable letters and poems from students describing what their world is likeand, more important, how to change it. Winners and finalists came from the united states; taipei, taiwan; lahore, pakistan; british colombia; and london.
Continued from part iii, 4bin 2024 we published issues available on all digital platforms and on kindle. Authors and poets we published include jill mccorkle, susan minot, hal crowther, kim addonizio, ellen bass, morgan talty, j. P. Grasser, supritha rajan, brian gyamfi, t. C. Boyle, ted kooser, naomi shihab nye, sharon olds, grace h. Zhou, sarah balakrishnan, richard bausch, and olufunke ogundimu. Fiction contest winners included kartikeya shekhar, doug ramspeck, peter bradbury, and madelena grossman; our sixteenth annual poetry contest winners were saddiq dzukogi, julia kolchinsky, and brian tierney. Some of the many authors and poets published in the story of the week and poem of the week features were bill barich, willa cather, david gavin, molly giles, soo j. Hong, ronan ryan, jane smiley, pascha sotolongo, virginia woolf, bruce bond, rosalie moffett, edward salem. Mai der vang, danusha lameris, amy miller, jon lee, and javier sandoval. For more info www.narrativemagazine.com.
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $658,906.
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 2020 to 2021, from $559k to $755k (+35%).
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: 2020 2% · 2021 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
68% of NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (100% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 8 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.
Board chair
Vivian Carmichael
Board chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 8 funders, grant income rose $70k → $122k.
9 of 18 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 73% 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 NARRATIVE MAGAZINE 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
NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 51% of grant income and the top three 75%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
74% 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 NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 46% · 2018 40% · 2019 62% · 2020 44% · 2021 48% · 2022 44% · 2023 41% — 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
73% of NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 72% 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
73% of NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC'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 $329k that is directly attributable, 81% of it comes from funders outside California, across 4 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $881k arriving through sponsors registered in 7 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
NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 12,816 religion nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 12,816 religion nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like NARRATIVE MAGAZINE 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
80% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
98%
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 NARRATIVE MAGAZINE 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 NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC?
- NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC (California) receives grants from 18 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,209,469 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($620,150). 13 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 73% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC have?
- IRS filings report 18 organizations giving $1,209,469 in grants to NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC, 13 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of NARRATIVE MAGAZINE INC?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $620,150 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like NARRATIVE MAGAZINE 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 Narrative Magazine →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 18 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