California · Nonprofit
Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy
Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy (California) receives grants from 28 organizations whose IRS filings report $9,990,173 to it, the largest being THE CALIFORNIA ENDOWMENT ($1,600,000). 17 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.0M
- Funders on record
- 28
- Grants received
- $10.0M
- Net assets
- $3.9M
What Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy does
Mission
Smartmeme inc. Dba center for story-based strategy ("css") is a national strategy center dedicated to harnessing the power of narrative for movement building and social change. Css provides social, economic and ecological justice leaders, organizations and alliances the strategic support to reframe issues and win critical campaigns. We use story-based approaches to amplify the impact of grassroots organizing, to communicate transformative possibilities and to re-imagine social change strategy. Through training and consulting, weve supported over 300 nonprofit organizations and 6,000 individual change agents.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
On its FY2024 return the organization reported starting a significant new program and a significant change in how it conducts a program.
A restricted grant to lead a cohort alongside Frameworks (funds from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation).
Its own explanation, from Schedule O of that return (Part III, line 2).
We wrapped up the CommOp program as the funding was closing down (paragraph about this program in prior year 990).
Its own explanation, from Schedule O of that return (Part III, line 3).
Public Trainings: CSS hosted multiple introductory training sessions to equip organizations with Story-Based Strategy (SBS) methods and support them in building long-term capacity for narrative strategy. Additionally, CSS planned a four-day, in-person training session, set for October 2025, bringing together 30 participants from different organizations.
$2,476,917 spentof which $662,949 as grants$56,474 earned by the program100% of program spendingPartnerships: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: CSS brought together a one-year cohort alongside Frameworks to shift mindsets around care while addressing individualism and deservingness. The cohort also aimed to convene collaborative learning spaces throughout the year to foster co-creation, relationship-building, and shared learning across six different organizations and build their capacity for narrative strategy.
Partnerships: Healthy & Safe Schools: In the second year of a two-year initiative, CSS implemented a structured, multi-phase framework designed to support a cohort of organizations in the adoption and application of SBS methodologies. This initiative facilitated the development of a cohesive meta-narrative and integrated long-term communication strategies to strengthen campaign effectiveness and advance community capacity of participating organizations working to promote and grow healthy schools.
Partnerships (Custom): Throughout the year, we support a variety of community-based organizations and collaborative initiatives by training groups in SBS tools to strengthen leadership, capacity, and facilitate effective planning and decision-making processes. Through partnerships, workshops, strategy sessions, and technical assistance, we help organizations utilize narrative strategy to develop shared visions, align goals, and enhance accountability to the communities they serve. .
RWJF: Developed curriculum and underlying structure for a 1-year cohort program with six organizations on narrative strategy & shifting mindsets. TCE Healthy & Safe Schools: Continued to provide cohort trainings, individualized coaching, in-person convenings and conducted new field research through partnering with Frameshift Public Trainings: Successfully completed 4 annual Intro Trainings and planned our annual 5-day Advanced Training (held in October 2025) while implementing new tools and innovating the 5-day structure to find new best practices.Custom Trainings: Deepened partnership and provided custom coaching with several collaborating organizations including the Southwest Organizing Project, Rogue Climate and over 20 EPA grantees. Network: Continued to hold spaces to build a network of SBS practitioners and began planning a new network gathering called Radical Imagination Retreat to run in 2026.
The 5 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,476,917.
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 $3.1M to $5.3M (+70%).
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: 2021 6%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
96% of Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (48% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 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
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 10 funders, grant income rose $265k → $1.3M.
10 of 28 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 25% 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 Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy’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
Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 16% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
33% 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 Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 38% · 2018 33% · 2019 26% · 2020 17% · 2021 35% · 2022 34% · 2023 27% — 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
35% of Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 61% 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
51% of Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.5M arriving through sponsors registered in 5 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
Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 9,398 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,398 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy
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
86% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
73%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 2 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy: 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 Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy?
- Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy (California) receives grants from 28 organizations whose IRS filings report $9,990,173 to it, the largest being THE CALIFORNIA ENDOWMENT ($1,600,000). 17 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy have?
- IRS filings report 28 organizations giving $9,990,173 in grants to Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy, 17 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy?
- THE CALIFORNIA ENDOWMENT is the largest funder on record, with $1,600,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Smartmeme DBA Center for Story-based Strategy 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.
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 28 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