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Ohio · Nonprofit

Wordplay Cincy

Wordplay Cincy (Ohio) receives grants from 33 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,816,927 to it, the largest being Landen Family Foundation Inc ($740,000). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year.

Revenue FY2025
$282k
Funders on record
33
Grants received
$1.8M
Net assets
$1.3M
21/33 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 66%
01What it does

What Wordplay Cincy does

Mission

WordPlay Cincy sparks storytelling through creative expression and arts in healing with Cincinnatis young people to cultivate belonging, celebrate our strengths, and empower the community in its pursuit of social justice.

As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.

Program

  1. Provides creative literacy opportunities to young people across Cincinnati through community- and school-based programs.

    $125,234 spentof which $18,324 as grants$282,369 earned by the program
    100% of program spending

The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $125,234.

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 ($424k) Expenses 100 ($249k) Net assets 100 ($221k)2018 Revenue 76 ($324k) Expenses 133 ($331k) Net assets 97 ($215k)2019 Revenue 247 ($1.0M) Expenses 206 ($513k) Net assets 338 ($749k)2020 Revenue 219 ($931k) Expenses 238 ($590k) Net assets 492 ($1.1M)2021 Revenue 148 ($630k) Expenses 151 ($376k) Net assets 607 ($1.3M)2022 Revenue 167 ($711k) Expenses 224 ($556k) Net assets 677 ($1.5M)2023 Revenue 85 ($363k) Expenses 229 ($570k) Net assets 583 ($1.3M)2024 Revenue 64 ($271k) Expenses 119 ($297k) Net assets 572 ($1.3M)2025 Revenue 67 ($282k) Expenses 115 ($285k) Net assets 571 ($1.3M)
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Revenue (67)Expenses (115)Net assets (571)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 2019 to 2020, from $750k to $1.4M (+81%).

$221k
$222k
$750k
$1.4M
$1.6M
$1.8M
$1.6M
$1.6M
$1.5M
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
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
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

Government-grant reliance: 2025 8%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.

96% of Wordplay Cincy’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (57% for the typical peer).

This organization
Typical peer · 24,946 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.

$176k
’17
−$7k
’18
$534k
’19
$340k
’20
$254k
’21
$155k
’22
−$207k
’23
−$25k
’24
−$2k
’25
8.7
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.

The chief executive listed changed between the FY2020 and FY2021 filings.

'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Listed101010111510101313
Joined·+2+3+4+6+1+0+6+4
No longer listed·23326034
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 8 funders to 9 funders, grant income rose $60k → $135k.

6 of 33 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 12% 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 Wordplay Cincy’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 33 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

Wordplay Cincy leans on a few funders — its largest provides 41% of grant income and the top three 59%; half comes from just 2 funders.

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

28% 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 Wordplay Cincy.

41%
largest funder
59%
top three
~5
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 42% · 2018 40% · 2019 28% · 2020 75% · 2021 52% · 2022 43% · 2023 30% — 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

50% of Wordplay Cincy's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 64% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y+3y+4y+5y+6y

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

92% of Wordplay Cincy's grant income comes from Ohio funders.

MN
IL
NY
OH
PA
CT
CA
TN

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

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
Ohio out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $211k arriving through sponsors registered in 5 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

Wordplay Cincy is better cushioned than half of the 16,849 education nonprofits its size.

Operating margin−1% · below the median
Months of reserve8.7mo · above the median
Revenue growth (annualized)−5% · bottom quartile

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 16,849 education nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025

Organizations like Wordplay Cincy

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 Ohio

Nationally

05Profile & governance

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

Where the money goes

44% of spending goes to programs.

Program 44%Management 51%Fundraising 5%

Governance

11
board members
100%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy✓Whistleblower policy✓Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990–Audited financials

Public support

71%

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

Footprint & structure

Files a return copy in 1 state

OH

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Wordplay Cincy: 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 Wordplay Cincy?
Wordplay Cincy (Ohio) receives grants from 33 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,816,927 to it, the largest being Landen Family Foundation Inc ($740,000). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year.
How many funders does Wordplay Cincy have?
IRS filings report 33 organizations giving $1,816,927 in grants to Wordplay Cincy, 21 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of Wordplay Cincy?
Landen Family Foundation Inc is the largest funder on record, with $740,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like Wordplay Cincy find more funders?
Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Ohio. 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 Wordplay Cincy →

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 33 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