Minnesota · Nonprofit
WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT
WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT (Minnesota) receives grants from 14 organizations whose IRS filings report $160,129 to it, the largest being MIGHTYCAUSE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION ($76,002). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $120k
- Funders on record
- 14
- Grants received
- $160k
- Net assets
- $86k
What Womens Prison Book Project does
Mission
Education
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Programs
Book Purchases: In 2024 Womens Prison Book Project provided free books and educational materials to more than 5,000 women trans and nonbinary people incarcerated across the United States. We purchase essential health and wellness resources like Trans Bodies Trans Selves; educational resources including GED test prep manuals; addiction and trauma recovery workbooks; career licensing and testing manuals; and materials for reentry and transition planning as well as resources of comfort and growth like novels memoirs journals daily affirmations and spiritual tomes and ship them to our community of incarcerated readers on their request to keep at no cost to the recipient. With the support of local bookstore partners who allow us to purchase some resources at cost in addition to contributions of gently used books from folks around the country we are able to allocate highly appreciated resources at an organizational cost of less than $7.65 per recipient.
$38,546 spent39% of program spendingPostage Shipping and Related Supplies: In this tax year Womens Prison Book Project shipped more than 6,500 packages filled with meaningful reading materials and mailed 3,000 handwritten Valentines and other letters of connection. Each package includes three books or one journal in addition to resource guides that include contact information for organizations that provide educational legal health recovery and reentry support. Across the number of packages we mailed this year our expenses for postage and shipping supplies amount to $6.72 per shipment -- an increase over previous years due to the consistent rise of postage rates as well as an increase of returned packages due to accelerating prison restrictions.
$44,053 spent45% of program spendingOccupancy: We house our collection of books and resources in a one-room office in Minneapolis Minnesota. Every Sunday we gather with volunteers to read letters from our community carefully select useful items from our bookshelves and wrap packages for shipment. Womens Prison Book Project is run entirely by volunteers including our core collective who direct the organization; we call on the support of more than 400 people who volunteer their time and energy -- some occasionally and some every week -- to be able to do this work with no labor costs.
$13,400 spent14% of program spendingInformation Technology and Office Expenses: The people Womens Prison Book Project serves do not have agency over their physical locations; they are moved from prison to prison and their sentences can be lengthened for minor infractions. Using online inmate-locator databases run by prisons we search for each person who will receive a package -- nearly 130 each week -- to learn if the prison in which the recipient is currently located will allow them to receive our shipments and if so with what restrictions. Our Information Technology and Office Expenses which give us access to those databases and provide materials to print resources and label packages amounted to just $0.31 per shipment this fiscal year.
$2,033 spent2% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $98,032.
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 at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2023 to 2024, from $48k to $69k (+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.
100% of WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (94% 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2019 → 2023: the base narrowed from 4 funders to 2 funders, grant income rose $7k → $16k.
4 of 14 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 44% 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 WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 13 of 14 funders by total. 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
WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT leans on a few funders — its largest provides 47% of grant income and the top three 84%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
92% 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 WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2019 84% · 2020 72% · 2021 46% · 2022 100% · 2023 98% — 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.
How long its funders stay
25% of WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 29% 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
WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT draws 88% of its grant income from funders outside Minnesota, across 5 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $71k 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
WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT has grown faster than three-quarters of the 1,661 crime & legal nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,661 crime & legal nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT
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 Minnesota
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Public support
86%
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 WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT: 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 WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT?
- WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT (Minnesota) receives grants from 14 organizations whose IRS filings report $160,129 to it, the largest being MIGHTYCAUSE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION ($76,002). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT have?
- IRS filings report 14 organizations giving $160,129 in grants to WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT, 4 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT?
- MIGHTYCAUSE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $76,002 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WOMENS PRISON BOOK PROJECT find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Minnesota. 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 Womens Prison Book Project →
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 14 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