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Pennsylvania · Nonprofit

Pennsylvania Humanities Council

Pennsylvania Humanities Council (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 15 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,363,503 to it, the largest being FEDERATION OF STATE HUMANITIES COUNCILS ($375,394). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.

Revenue FY2025
$2.9M
Funders on record
15
Grants received
$1.4M
Net assets
$1.1M
5/15 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 14%
01What it does

What Pennsylvania Humanities Council does

Mission

We put the humanities in action to create positive change in our lives and communities.

As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.

Programs

  1. Not described on the e-filed return.

    $177,441 spent$8,250 earned by the program
    11% of program spending

  2. Not described on the e-filed return.

    $388,223 spentof which $35,000 as grants
    24% of program spending

  3. Not described on the e-filed return.

    $248,194 spentof which $110,000 as grants
    16% of program spending

  4. Voices of history

    $220,665 spent
    14% of program spending

  5. Rain poetry

    $172,038 spent
    11% of program spending

  6. Special projects

    $239,595 spent
    15% of program spending

  7. Marketing & communications

    $152,501 spent
    10% of program spending

The 7 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,598,657.

02The organization over time

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.

100 = 20172017 Revenue 100 ($1.4M) Expenses 100 ($1.5M) Net assets 100 ($946k)2018 Revenue 111 ($1.6M) Expenses 117 ($1.7M) Net assets 81 ($765k)2019 Revenue 127 ($1.8M) Expenses 125 ($1.9M) Net assets 72 ($685k)2020 Revenue 199 ($2.8M) Expenses 178 ($2.7M) Net assets 87 ($819k)2021 Revenue 247 ($3.5M) Expenses 136 ($2.0M) Net assets 239 ($2.3M)2022 Revenue 142 ($2.0M) Expenses 241 ($3.6M) Net assets 71 ($670k)2023 Revenue 389 ($5.4M) Expenses 239 ($3.6M) Net assets 270 ($2.6M)2024 Revenue 175 ($2.5M) Expenses 274 ($4.1M) Net assets 83 ($782k)2025 Revenue 208 ($2.9M) Expenses 175 ($2.6M) Net assets 115 ($1.1M)
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Revenue (208)Expenses (175)Net assets (115)Peer revenue range

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 $798k to $4.4M (+451%).

$1.0M
$856k
$789k
$1.1M
$2.5M
$798k
$4.4M
$1.4M
$1.7M
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

Government-grant reliance: 2017 97% · 2018 91% · 2019 82% · 2020 87% · 2021 86% · 2022 85% · 2023 39% · 2024 85% · 2025 52%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.

98% of Pennsylvania Humanities Council’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (63% for the typical peer).

This organization
Typical peer · 5,377 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.

−$87k
’17
−$181k
’18
−$80k
’19
$134k
’20
$1.4M
’21
−$1.6M
’22
$1.9M
’23
−$1.6M
’24
$305k
’25
5.7
months of
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

Laurie Zierer

Executive director

Board chair

Gwendolyn White

Chair

As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.

'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Listed242022262526252727
Joined·+2+7+10+1+7+5+7+0
No longer listed·65626650
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 8 funders, grant income rose $191k → $243k.

Funder
'17
'18
'19
'20
'21
'22
'23
'24*
'25*
total
funders
2
1
2
2
1
3
8
4
3

5 of 15 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.

Left out of every figure on this page: $14k from one payer (the same organization on both sides, largest Pennsylvania Humanities Council). These are real filings, and they are not money Pennsylvania Humanities Council raised.

From the IRS filings of Pennsylvania Humanities Council’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

Pennsylvania Humanities Council leans on a few funders — its largest provides 28% of grant income and the top three 71%; half comes from just 2 funders.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left

62% 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 Pennsylvania Humanities Council.

28%
largest funder
71%
top three
~5
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 81% · 2018 100% · 2019 50% · 2020 100% · 2021 100% · 2022 92% · 2023 38% — 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

60% of Pennsylvania Humanities Council's funders are still giving 1 year after their first grant; 33% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y

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

67% of Pennsylvania Humanities Council's grant income comes from Pennsylvania funders.

VT
PA
VA

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’17
’18
’19
’20
’22
’23
Pennsylvania out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $123k 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.

04Its place in the field

Against its field

Pennsylvania Humanities Council runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits its size.

Operating margin10% · above the median
Months of reserve5.7mo · above the median
Revenue growth (annualized)10% · above the median

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025

Government funding Pennsylvania Humanities Council receives

Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $15.7M on record.

Federal$15.7M
grants $15.7Mcontracts $0
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
Top agencies
  • National Endowment for the Humanities$15.7M
  • National Endowment for the Arts$60k

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 Pennsylvania Humanities Council

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 Pennsylvania

Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership75%Arts Holding Hands and Hearts Inc75%Tree House Books75%Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh73%Philadelphia Mural Arts Advocates Inc73%Women's Resource Center of the Delaware Valley73%LiveConnectionsorg73%Weathervane Music Organization72%

Nationally

Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership75%Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts and Entertainment District75%Arts Holding Hands and Hearts Inc75%Tree House Books75%Project Write Now Inc74%Wisconsin Humanities Council Inc74%People and Stories Gente y Cuentos73%Missouri Humanities Council73%
05Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

61% of spending goes to programs.

Program 61%Management 22%Fundraising 17%

Governance

22
board members
100%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy✓Whistleblower policy✓Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990✓Audited financials

Public support

79%

Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.

Footprint & structure

Files a return copy in 1 state

PA

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Pennsylvania Humanities Council: 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.

A paid feature, included from the $75 plan up. Sign in to download.

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 Pennsylvania Humanities Council?
Pennsylvania Humanities Council (Pennsylvania) receives grants from 15 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,363,503 to it, the largest being FEDERATION OF STATE HUMANITIES COUNCILS ($375,394). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.
How many funders does Pennsylvania Humanities Council have?
IRS filings report 15 organizations giving $1,363,503 in grants to Pennsylvania Humanities Council, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of Pennsylvania Humanities Council?
FEDERATION OF STATE HUMANITIES COUNCILS is the largest funder on record, with $375,394 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like Pennsylvania Humanities Council find more funders?
Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Pennsylvania. 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 15 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