New York · Nonprofit
POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA
POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA (New York) receives grants from 40 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,280,533 to it, the largest being TTEE POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA UW-AP ($1,066,063). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.2M
- Funders on record
- 40
- Grants received
- $2.3M
- Net assets
- $6.2M
What Poetry Society of America does
Mission
The Poetry Society of America, the nation's oldest poetry organization, was founded in 1910. Its mission is to build a larger and more diverse audience for poetry, to encourage a deeper appreciation of the vitality (continued on schedule o)and breadth of poetry in the cultural conversation, and to place poetry at the crossroads of american life.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Public programs:the poetry society presents live and digital programs that explore the work of individual poets, as well as important themes in contemporary poetry. These include a wide variety of events in the poetry society's storefront space: readings, lectures, seminars, workshops, teacher trainings, children's programs, and community events. The poetry society's digital programs, which include video recordings of live events and online seminars and workshops, as well as the publication of essays, interviews, and original poems, serve hundreds of poets and tens of thousands of readers each year.
$246,652 spentof which $34,210 as grants$40,122 earned by the program41% of program spendingAnnual awardseach year, the poetry society offers more than a dozen awards to honor and support poets at every stage of their careers, ranging from an award for a student poet to best first book to lifetime achievement in poetry. Recipients of the poetry society's most distinguished award, the frost medal, have included gwendolyn brooks, wallace stevens, marianne moore, john ashbery, and lucille clifton. Recipients of the four quartets prize for best poetry sequence have included dante micheaux, danez smith, and john murillo. Each year, the poetry society also awards two chapbook fellowships, which include a prize of $1,000 and the publication of their first chapbook, along with mentorship by an established poet in the editorial and publication process.
$151,835 spentof which $60,850 as grants$35,534 earned by the program26% of program spendingPoetry and public spacesince 1992, the poetry society has presented poetry in motion, which places poems in transit systems around the country, creating unexpected and meaningful encounters in public spaces between poems and millions of readers. In 2021, the program expanded to include the washington dc area metro system and path/port authority stations in new jersey and new york. The program serves approximately 9 million people each year. Poetry in motion is now the cornerstone of a larger array of programs in public space, including partnerships with civic organizations to present poetry-based public art projects. In 2022, the poetry society partnered with the downtown brooklyn partnership to preset seeing into tomorrow, which transformed poems by richard wright into large-scale installations on walls in several brooklyn neighborhoods. In april 2023, the poetry society launched park poems, a partnership with nyc parks to place poems in five public parks, one in each borough. In 2024, park poems expanded to include partnerships with new york state parks, the national park service, and the brooklyn botanical garden. In 2025, the poetry society launched the poem district, with…
$196,195 spent33% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $594,682.
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 $4.4M to $5.5M (+25%).
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 14% · 2018 8% · 2019 6% · 2020 11% · 2021 21% · 2022 6% · 2023 20% · 2024 15% · 2025 12%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
70% of POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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
Matt Brogan
Executive director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2019 and FY2020 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 13 funders to 18 funders, grant income rose $76k → $457k.
4 of 40 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 5% 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 POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 40 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
POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA leans on a few funders — its largest provides 47% of grant income and the top three 65%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 33% · 2018 36% · 2019 26% · 2020 60% · 2021 60% · 2022 50% · 2023 39% — growing more concentrated.
“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
48% of POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 65% 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
POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA draws 69% of its grant income from funders outside New York, across 10 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $112k arriving through sponsors registered in 4 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
POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 3,430 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,430 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $250k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$250k
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 POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA
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 New York
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
66% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
57%
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 POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA: 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 POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA?
- POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA (New York) receives grants from 40 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,280,533 to it, the largest being TTEE POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA UW-AP ($1,066,063). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA have?
- IRS filings report 40 organizations giving $2,280,533 in grants to POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA, 26 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA?
- TTEE POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA UW-AP is the largest funder on record, with $1,066,063 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in New York. 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 40 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