California · Nonprofit
YOUTH SPEAKS INC
YOUTH SPEAKS INC (California) receives grants from 70 organizations whose IRS filings report $15,251,103 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($4,065,000). 34 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 54% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.9M
- Funders on record
- 70
- Grants received
- $15M
- Net assets
- $5.8M
What Youth Speaks Inc does
Mission
Youth speaks creates safe spaces to empower the next generation of leaders, self-defined artists, and visionary activists through written and oral literacies. We challenge youth to find, develop, publicly present, and apply their voices as creators of societal change. Ultimately, we hope to shift the perceptions of youth by combating illiteracy, alienation, and silence, creating a global movement of brave new voices bringing the noise from the margins to the core. Since 1996, youth speaks has championed a localized, national, and increasingly global movement of young people boldly declaring themselves present.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
National & field building programs - (1) brave new voices -- youthspeaks first founded the brave new voices (or "bnv") festival as thenational youth poetry slam in 1998, after the success of the local workin the bay area. The first slam had four teams; we now have 55competing teams and five to ten non-competing teams join us each year.bnv is about bringing together young poets from across the globe sothat they can create new pathways toward artistic growth, civicengagement, and youth development. Bnv takes place in a different cityeach year, and reaches up to 200,000 people each festival. Beginning infy14, the program was expanded to include the bnv network initiative, acomprehensive multi-year initiative to support programs andorganizations in the field of arts education and youth development through grants, consulting services, fellowships, and other resources,from within the existing bnv network and beyond, to become stronger,more sustainable, and more impactful organizations. (2) the biggerpicture is a collaboration between youth speaks, and the university ofcalifornia, san francisco center for vulnerable populations designed tocombat the rising epidemic of type 2 diabetes by…
$2,100,582 spent78% of program spendingBay area programs - every time a thought is put into words, it is a creative act (thus the term, language arts). The same way a student recognizes and is able to practice visual arts by learning images, drawing, painting, and/or sculpting, a person's language skills expand the more s/he communicates ideas, problems, feelings, and solutions. Our local programming sits at the core of youth speaks. Programs such as our after school workshops, in-school residencies, uncer 21 open mic, bringing the noise for martin luther king jr., teen poetry slam, unified district poetry clam, oakland poet laureate, queeriosity and mc olympics, fully embody our unique pedagogy which combines arts education, youth development, performance and civic engagement. We believe that our strength as a national leader is intrinsically connected to the depth and excellence of our core local programs and pedagogy. Youth speaks is also actively creating professional development training opportunities and pathways as part of bay area program. We developed the first sound institute in collaboration with the university of san francisco school of education, to bring together artists and secondary educators from…
$558,838 spent21% of program spendingTheater program - youth speaks theater program is committed to producing literary performance in the verse of our time. Aesthetically urban, pedagogically freirean, our theater program derives personal performed narratives out of interdisciplinary collaboration. Though its methodology includes dance, music, and film, the company's emphasis is spoken storytelling.we support the creation of verse-based work that is spoken through the body, illustrated by visual and sonic scores, and in communication with the important social issues and movements of the immediate moment. Youth speaks theater program is also centrally focused on supporting the next generation of theater artists, technical personnel and leaders, including writers, directors, performers and producers, through our emerging artists fellowship. Emerging artists fellows are alumni of youth speaks youth programs and the brave new voices network.
$22,886 spent1% of program spendingOther program services: youth speaks convened a statewide network of 10 network organizations across california to be trained in the delivery of best practices in spoken word programming based in youth development and social justice principles. Youth speaks also partnered with ucsfs center for vulnerable populations to the increase of type ii diabetes in certain populations through cultural work to drive behavioral change.
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,682,306.
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.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2020 to 2021, from $1.2M to $6.8M (+485%).
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: 2017 9% · 2019 57% · 2020 50% · 2021 16% · 2022 18% · 2023 35% · 2024 41% · 2025 26%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
77% of YOUTH SPEAKS INC’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (82% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 of the last 8 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
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 31 funders to 19 funders, grant income fell $2.7M → $1.1M.
15 of 70 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 54% 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 YOUTH SPEAKS INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 70 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
YOUTH SPEAKS INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 27% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
60% 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 YOUTH SPEAKS INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 31% · 2018 29% · 2019 25% · 2020 25% · 2021 78% · 2022 22% · 2023 19% — 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
34% of YOUTH SPEAKS INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 49% 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
54% of YOUTH SPEAKS INC's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $6.9M that is directly attributable, 60% of it comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $8.3M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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
YOUTH SPEAKS INC holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 1,064 youth development nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,064 youth development nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding YOUTH SPEAKS INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $465k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$465k
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 YOUTH SPEAKS 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 California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
63% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
89%
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 YOUTH SPEAKS 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 YOUTH SPEAKS INC?
- YOUTH SPEAKS INC (California) receives grants from 70 organizations whose IRS filings report $15,251,103 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($4,065,000). 34 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 54% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does YOUTH SPEAKS INC have?
- IRS filings report 70 organizations giving $15,251,103 in grants to YOUTH SPEAKS INC, 34 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of YOUTH SPEAKS INC?
- NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $4,065,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like YOUTH SPEAKS INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
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 70 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