South Dakota · Nonprofit
WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY
WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY (South Dakota) receives grants from 10 organizations whose IRS filings report $915,556 to it, the largest being NDN COLLECTIVE INC ($455,000). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.7M
- Funders on record
- 10
- Grants received
- $916k
- Net assets
- $2.7M
What Wambli Ska Society does
Mission
The mission of wambli ska okolakiciye is to empower the native american community to overcome barriers, revive cultural traditions, and promote resiliency in a compassionate and supportive environment. We walk alongside our people responding to urgent needs while reviving traditional lifeways, fostering education, and building pathways to self-determined futures. As an indigenous-led nonprofit rooted in service, cultural restoration, and community resilience, our mission remains intentionally broad, designed to meet the evolving realities of indigenous communities with agility, compassion, and strength.
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.
The organization expanded its ecosystem this tax year to include the following new or significantly launched program areas: (1)sacred storm buffalo butcher shop and market a brick-and-mortar retail space offering ethically sourced indigenous foods including buffalo, wild rice, indigenous beans, jams, and traditional medicines; (2) zuya wicasa ta o'tipi | warriors lodge men's transitional housing providing a safe environment for more than 20 young men with mentorship, life skills, and cultural reconnection; (3) pejuta waste o'tipi | good medicine lodge emergency shelter and day center providing comprehensive wraparound services to the unsheltered community; (4)the oyate court program, offering restorative justice services promoting social equality; and (5) a k-12 on- site homeschool teaching lakota language, history, and culture; (6) the organization also launched a wellbriety program providing indigenous-based addiction recovery support and a community violence intervention initiative to reduce neighborhood harm and police presence.
Its own explanation, from Schedule O of that return (Part III, line 2).
The wambli ska teen drop-in center significantly expanded its services to include a computer lab, art and recording studios, food pantry, suicide prevention programming, hygiene supplies, and life skills training, in addition to its existing homework support, tutoring, mentoring, and cultural teachings. Sacred storm buffalo expanded from planning to active operations, including a meat processing facility, a mobile field harvest unit, retail market, and a workforce apprenticeship program rooted in lakota values and full carcass utilization. The program deepened its focus on indigenous food sovereignty by adding traditional foods beyond buffalo including wild rice, indigenous beans, jams, chokecherries, sage, cedar, red willow, and sweet grass responsibly harvested by youth participants. The program also launched a "native first, local second" campaign in coalition with indigenous retail spaces and producers.
Its own explanation, from Schedule O of that return (Part III, line 3).
Cultural & community programs- wambli ska teen drop-in center serves as a safe haven for native american youth in rapid city, south dakota, a city where systemic inequities in education, policing, and the justice system place indigenous young people at profound risk. The center provides a welcoming, culturally grounded space where youth can access basic needs, build skills, and reconnect with their identity and community. Services include homework support and tutoring, computer lab access, showers, food pantry, hot meals, life skills training, art and recording studios, suicide prevention programming, and mentoring. Cultural teachings, lakota language instruction, and community gatherings connect youth to their heritage and to each other. The center also offers a k-12 on-site homeschool option and operates a safe passage program protecting youth in high-risk areas. Zuya wicasa ta o'tipi | warriors lodge provides transitional housing and holistic wraparound support for more than 20 young native men in rapid city. The program offers mentorship, life skills training, cultural reconnection to traditional ways of living, and a secure environment for healing and personal growth. Pejuta…
$252,609 spent19% of program spendingSacred storm buffalo is a workforce development and food sovereignty initiative that restores the connection between native american youth and their ancestral relationship to the land and the buffalo. Through two complementary operations a mobile harvest unit and a brick-andmortar butcher shop and market participants engage in hands-on apprenticeship training in every stage of buffalo harvesting, butchery, full carcass utilization, retail operations, and food entrepreneurship. Rooted in lakota values, the program reconnects young people to cultural food traditions, builds pathways to meaningful careers in agriculture and food production, and advances food sovereignty for indigenous communities by providing ethically sourced, culturally relevant protein and traditional foods to families and communities in need. Sacred storm buffalo represents wambli ska's commitment to empowering our people not just to survive, but to lead. The participants in our program are not between jobs or simply seeking a new career path - they have lived through years of unresovled trauma and grief. The conventional workforce development system was not built for our participants. Sacred storm buffalo is…
$1,083,737 spent$1,923,994 earned by the program81% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,336,346.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2022, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2022, 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 $384k to $2.7M (+593%).
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 30% · 2025 12%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
47% of WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 4 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
Chris White Eagle
CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2021 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 6 funders, grant income rose $279k → $454k.
4 of 10 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 16% 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 WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY’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
WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY leans on a few funders — its largest provides 50% 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
100% 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 WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2021 46% · 2022 57% · 2023 73% — 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.
Where its funders are
69% of WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY's grant income comes from South Dakota funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $148k 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.
Against its field
WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY 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 WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.4M on record.
- Department of Housing and Urban Development$1.2M
- Department of Agriculture$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 WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY
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 Dakota
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
77% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
92%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY: 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 WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY?
- WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY (South Dakota) receives grants from 10 organizations whose IRS filings report $915,556 to it, the largest being NDN COLLECTIVE INC ($455,000). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY have?
- IRS filings report 10 organizations giving $915,556 in grants to WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY, 4 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY?
- NDN COLLECTIVE INC is the largest funder on record, with $455,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WAMBLI SKA SOCIETY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in South Dakota. 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 Wambli Ska Society →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2022–2025), and the filings of 10 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