South Carolina · Nonprofit
The Watering Hole Poetry Organization
The Watering Hole Poetry Organization (South Carolina) receives grants from 4 organizations whose IRS filings report $121,650 to it, the largest being THE POETRY FOUNDATION ($50,000). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $289k
- Funders on record
- 4
- Grants received
- $122k
- Net assets
- $211k
What The Watering Hole Poetry Organization does
Mission
We are a southern-based vanguard who builds Harlem Renaissance-style spaces in the contemporary South. Our core purpose is to cultivate and inspire kinship between poets of color from all spoken and written traditions, thus creating a tribe with a mutual focus of poetics and craft-building.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
The Watering Hole invests in pursuing the craft of poetry. We are a home where poets of color in the South can learn and grow at each others' feet. The Watering Hole hosts the only Southern writing Retreat for poets of color and draws 50 to 60 poets to the Retreat each year.
$85,500 spent$20,651 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $85,500.
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 2024 to 2025, from $59k to $212k (+258%).
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: 2024 46% · 2025 25%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
93% of The Watering Hole Poetry Organization’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. 1 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
Dasan Ahanu
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
Grant support over time, funder by funder — shade shows the grant size each year.
From the IRS filings of The Watering Hole Poetry Organization’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
The Watering Hole Poetry Organization leans on a few funders — its largest provides 41% of grant income and the top three 92%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
51% 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 The Watering Hole Poetry Organization.
“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
The Watering Hole Poetry Organization draws 92% of its grant income from funders outside South Carolina, across 4 states in all.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. 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
The Watering Hole Poetry Organization runs a healthier operating margin 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
Government funding The Watering Hole Poetry Organization receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $75k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$75k
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 The Watering Hole Poetry Organization
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 South Carolina
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
62% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
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 The Watering Hole Poetry Organization: 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 The Watering Hole Poetry Organization?
- The Watering Hole Poetry Organization (South Carolina) receives grants from 4 organizations whose IRS filings report $121,650 to it, the largest being THE POETRY FOUNDATION ($50,000). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does The Watering Hole Poetry Organization have?
- IRS filings report 4 organizations giving $121,650 in grants to The Watering Hole Poetry Organization, 2 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The Watering Hole Poetry Organization?
- THE POETRY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $50,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The Watering Hole Poetry Organization find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in South Carolina. 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 Watering Hole Poetry Organization →
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 4 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