In every state, every congressional district, and more than 95 percent of counties in the United States, public charities receive government grants. Without these grants, most nonprofits would be unable to cover their expenses.

Nationwide, 103,475 public charities reported receiving a total of over $267 billion from government grants in 2021. The inflation-adjusted total of over $300 billion represents almost three times the most recent estimates of foundation giving.

In all but two of the 437 congressional districts in the United States, the typical nonprofit could not cover its expenses without its government grants. And in every state, between 60 and 80 percent of nonprofits that receive government grants would be at risk of a financial shortfall.

The map below allows users to understand the financial risk to nonprofits if they lose their government grants. Explore the data at the national level by state, subsector, and nonprofit size. Or click on a state to see a county, congressional district, size, and subsector breakdown.

The tool summarizes data from all Internal Revenue Service Form 990 electronic filers in 2021.
 

Methodology

The data for this analysis represent 501(c)(3) charitable organizations that filed IRS Form 990 electronically for tax year 2021. It is limited to 103,475 public charities in the United States and does not include 990EZ filers or 990N postcard filers, which do not report government grants. Duplicate records were removed from the database to avoid double-counting government grants. For example, nonprofits may file amended returns when corrections are needed, or partial year returns when they change accounting calendars. Some federated nonprofits also file group returns.

For nonprofits with amended returns, we retain only their most recent 990 filing. Partial returns that fall within the 2021 tax year were not dropped from the analysis because they capture valid government grant allocations within the tax year that would otherwise go uncounted. Unlike group or amended returns, partial returns would not duplicate reporting. A public 990 efile research database is available on the Urban Institute's National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) website.

The 2021 dataset contains data from 323,417 full 990 returns, which we filtered to only include the 103,475 returns reporting receipt of a government grant. The vintage was selected as the most recent complete year of filers available in the NCCS archives, maximizing sample size and representativeness.

The IRS requires 501(c)(3) public charities to report their total government grant revenue on Form 990. They are required to file a full 990 form if they meet one of two thresholds: annual gross receipts of $200,000 or more, or total assets of $500,000 or more. Nonprofits falling below those thresholds have the option of filing Form 990EZ or 990N depending on their size. Smaller nonprofits have the option of filing a full 990 form as well. Electronic filing became mandatory starting in 2022 (for 2021 tax year returns).

Form 990 filers are matched to geographies by linking efiler data with NCCS’s Unified Business Master File (BMF). The BMF contains nonprofit organizational attributes, including geocoded headquarter addresses. Urban Institute's geocoding engine converts organization addresses into latitude and longitude coordinates. The coordinates are matched to states, counties, and congressional districts using a spatial join overlay. Organizations with incomplete address information or addresses belonging to US territories such as Puerto Rico and American Samoa are aggregated in a separate “Other US Jurisdictions/Unmapped” category. Congressional districts refer to the boundaries as of February 2025.

Nonprofit subsector classification follows the NTEE-V2 coding system, developed by NCCS. This system, which refines the original National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) used by the IRS, categorizes organizations by their 12 primary activities or industries using the first three characters of the classification code.

Nonprofits are assigned to size categories based upon total expenses (Form 990, Part I, Line 18 or Part IX, Line 25, Column A).

Understanding the Metrics

Number of 990 filers with government grants refers to organizations reporting positive government grant revenue on Form 990, Part VIII, Line 1e in their 2021 electronically filed returns. This measure is analyzed by geographic location, organizational size, and nonprofit subsector.

Total government grants ($) is defined as the aggregate value reported on Form 990, Part VIII, Line 1e in 2021 electronically filed returns, categorized by geographic location, organizational size categories, and nonprofit subsector. Note that this measure understates total government funding, as it excludes other forms of public support such as government contracts, fees, vouchers, reimbursements, and other forms of revenue derived from services that are supported through government programs. Those types of government support, although substantial, are aggregated in other revenue categories and cannot be disaggregated.

Operating surplus with government grants is calculated as net income divided by total revenue, both in the current year. It is expressed as a percentage. Net income is the difference between total revenue (Form 990, Part I, Line 12 or Part VIII, Line 12, Column A) and total expenses (Form 990, Part I, Line 18 or Part IX, Line 25, Column A). This indicator is used as a measure of an organization's financial sustainability. Organizations reporting zero revenue or zero net income are assigned an operating surplus of zero.

Operating surplus without government grants is calculated by removing government grant revenue (Form 990, Part VIII, Line 1e) in the numerator. This measure assesses an organization's potential financial sustainability in the absence of government grant funding.

Share of grant recipients at risk is defined as the proportion of nonprofits with a negative operating surplus after government grants are excluded from total revenue. It is calculated as the count of organizations with negative operating surplus after losing government grants divided by the total number of nonprofits reporting government grant revenue. This percentage indicates what portion of government-funded nonprofits would experience fiscal distress as a result of losing grant funding.

About

This data visualization was funded by Urban Institute’s National Center for Charitable Statistics with research efforts led by Thiyaghessan Poongundranar, Jesse Lecy, Laura Tomasko, Teresa Harrison, and Hannah Martin. Rachel Marconi, Kaitlin HaeHae, and Alex Dallman contributed to the creation of this data visualization.