Colorado · Nonprofit
The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc
The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc (Colorado) receives grants from 13 organizations whose IRS filings report $429,926 to it, the largest being BONFILS-STANTON FOUNDATION ($102,500). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $470k
- Funders on record
- 13
- Grants received
- $430k
- Net assets
- $-109175
What The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc does
Mission
To promote voices from underserved communities and diverse backgrounds, to honor the stories of those who have faced adversity and injustice, and to provide a sanctuary space where these groups will see themselves in literature.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
[margins.] Literary Conference + Book Festival: A biannual space where the dream of an inclusive literary future is made into a micro-reality. The conference exists to connect people to each other and build intentional community among other diverse people, connect publishing industry leaders to talent, and share practical and substantive knowledge with attendees. On September 9, 2023 [margins.] reconvened for a one-day virtual literary conference that featured 34 speakers, nearly 100 attendees, and focused on the theme of Who said that? The conference explored releasing expectations from literary practices that are not defined to serve our greatest visions. The conference opened with a virtual community open mic and reading with many in the room acknowledging [margins.] provided them with a safe space to read and share their work publicly for the first time. Session topics included marketing to your community, writing beyond a single genre, and collaboration, and ended with a poetry reading by Alejandro Jimenez. During fiscal year 2024, the organization planned its next hybrid in-person and virtual conference and book festival that took place in the Santa Fe arts district in…
$102,460 spent28% of program spendingCommunity Engagement: The Word hosts regular in-person and virtual events to help connect writers to each other, connect industry professionals to writers and promote issues and topics of importance to The Word community. Past events include: mixers, author panels and discussions, and opportunities to engage in advocacy. Information about how best to navigate the publishing industry is often opaque and few writers are taught the business-side of being creative. The Word provides valuable resource guides and hosts workshops with industry leaders who share vital information with participants.
$76,327 spent21% of program spendingNEA Big Read: From September 2023 through June 2024, The Word hosted a Denver metro-wide reading and event series of Natalie Diazs Postcolonial Love Poems, exploring change and interconnection, collective space held in community, and equitable futures that can exist today. This program consisted of several public events with Denver-based community partners. Public programming included book distribution, community dialogues, book discussions, dramatic readings, visual art exhibits, and activities around bookmaking and art-making. The Word hosted workshops and panel discussions throughout the year which culminated with a keynote event featuring Natalie Diaz.
$76,083 spent21% of program spendingOTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 4: BIPOC Bookseller Award: An annual award and ceremony, the only of its kind currently in the U.S., celebrating three booksellers in the areas of activism, innovation and leadership, whose dedication to indie bookstores, and their BIPOC colleagues and communities, has positively influenced the industry. OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 5: #MarginsBookselling:#MarginsBookselling celebrates booksellers and bookstores, centering BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, disabled and neurodiverse communities and supports over 200 booksellers. Celebrations include the Duende-Word BIPOC Bookseller Award; the creation of safe spaces for booksellers to connect, educate and restore; a month-long consumer awareness campaign in July; an interactive bookstore map featuring over 150 bookstores owned and/or managed by the communities we serve; curated author events; bookseller-curated reading lists and recommendations that promote authors from our core communities; bookseller spotlights that highlight their work as culture bearers in the literary ecosystem; community-centered workshops and education sessions; opportunities for economic and professional development and more! OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 6:…
$111,506 spent30% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2023 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $366,376.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2020, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2020, 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 $82k to $46k (−44%).
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: 2022 32% · 2023 23%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
100% of The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc’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. 4 of the last 5 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
2019 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 4 funders, grant income rose $15k → $58k.
5 of 13 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 42% 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 The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary 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
The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 24% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
65% 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 Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2019 100% · 2020 100% · 2021 51% · 2022 37% · 2023 77% — 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
25% of The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc's funders are still giving 2 years after their first grant; 38% 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
57% of The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc's grant income comes from Colorado funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $179k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 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
The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc has grown faster 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 Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $155k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$155k
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 Word A Storytelling Sanctuary 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 Colorado
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
92% 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 Word A Storytelling Sanctuary 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 The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc?
- The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc (Colorado) receives grants from 13 organizations whose IRS filings report $429,926 to it, the largest being BONFILS-STANTON FOUNDATION ($102,500). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc have?
- IRS filings report 13 organizations giving $429,926 in grants to The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc?
- BONFILS-STANTON FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $102,500 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The Word A Storytelling Sanctuary Inc find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Colorado. 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 Word A Storytelling Sanctuary →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2020–2025), and the filings of 13 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