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Montana · Nonprofit

Thunderheart Media Inc

Thunderheart Media Inc (Montana) receives grants from 17 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,292,935 to it, the largest being MARGARET A CARGILL FOUNDATION ($575,000). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.

Revenue FY2024
$226k
Funders on record
17
Grants received
$1.3M
Net assets
$612k
5/17 repeat fundersgrants exceed reported revenue in one year
01What it does

What Thunderheart Media Inc does

Mission

To create and distribute films and videos that are designed to foster healing, tolerance and unity and to reduce prejudice and discrimination.

As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.

Program

  1. Our primary program to date has been the film Bring Them Home. In 2024, we finally completed the film and premiered it at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival where we won the Big Sky Award. We simultaneously launched an impact campaign to use the film to help the Blackfeet return wild buffalo and generate support for buffalo rewilding around the country. This impact campaign generated more than 30 community screenings and 25 festival screenings. We also completed a short film, Buffalo Spirit, which is a companion short to Bring Them Home.We also begin active development on Bring Them Home's sister project, Buffalo Stone, recruiting a producer for the project, doing more intensive rounds of writing of the script, and starting to approach potential funders of the project.Finally, we continue to fiscally sponsor the film project HumanKind, which completed production and entered post-production in 2024.

    $357,193 spent$27,263 earned by the program
    100% of program spending

The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $357,193.

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 ($40k) Expenses 100 ($5k) Net assets 100 ($35k)2019 Revenue 263 ($105k) Expenses 802 ($38k) Net assets 222 ($78k)2020 Revenue 34 ($14k) Expenses 1716 ($81k) Net assets 31 ($11k)2021 Revenue 1214 ($486k) Expenses 3317 ($157k) Net assets 963 ($340k)2022 Revenue 480 ($192k) Expenses 4649 ($220k) Net assets 884 ($312k)2023 Revenue 1791 ($717k) Expenses 4563 ($216k) Net assets 2303 ($813k)2024 Revenue 565 ($226k) Expenses 9038 ($428k) Net assets 1733 ($612k)
2017201920202021202220232024
Revenue (565)Expenses (9038)Net assets (1733)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 $314k to $815k (+160%).

$35k
$78k
$11k
$345k
$314k
$815k
$625k
2017201920202021202220232024
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
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

88% of Thunderheart Media Inc’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (64% for the typical peer).

This organization
Typical peer · 19,618 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 7 reported years ran a deficit.

$35k
’17
$67k
’19
−$67k
’20
$329k
’21
−$28k
’22
$501k
’23
−$201k
’24
18
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.

2021202220232024
Listed5666
Joined·+1+1+1
No longer listed·011
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 5 funders, grant income rose $10k → $684k.

3 of 17 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 23% 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 Thunderheart Media 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

Thunderheart Media Inc leans on a few funders — its largest provides 44% of grant income and the top three 74%; half comes from just 2 funders.

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

39% 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 Thunderheart Media Inc.

44%
largest funder
74%
top three
~4
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 100% · 2021 64% · 2022 72% · 2023 84% — 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

20% of Thunderheart Media Inc's funders are still giving 2 years after their first grant; 29% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y

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

Thunderheart Media Inc draws 97% of its grant income from funders outside Montana, across 10 states in all.

WA
MT
MN
IL
NY
CA
CO
NM
DC
GA

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

’17
’18
’21
’22
’23
Montana out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $295k 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

Thunderheart Media Inc holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 17,953 arts & culture nonprofits its size.

Operating margin−89% · bottom quartile
Months of reserve17.5mo · top quartile
Revenue growth (annualized)28% · top quartile

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 17,953 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024

Organizations like Thunderheart Media 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 Montana

Nationally

05Profile & governance

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

Where the money goes

83% of spending goes to programs.

Program 83%Management 4%Fundraising 12%

Governance

5
board members
100%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy–Whistleblower policy–Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990–Audited financials

Public support

50%

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

Footprint & structure

Part of a family of 1 related entity

  • Buffalo Cousins LLC · disregarded

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Thunderheart Media 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.

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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 Thunderheart Media Inc?
Thunderheart Media Inc (Montana) receives grants from 17 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,292,935 to it, the largest being MARGARET A CARGILL FOUNDATION ($575,000). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.
How many funders does Thunderheart Media Inc have?
IRS filings report 17 organizations giving $1,292,935 in grants to Thunderheart Media Inc, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of Thunderheart Media Inc?
MARGARET A CARGILL FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $575,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like Thunderheart Media Inc find more funders?
Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Montana. 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 Thunderheart Media →

These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 17 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