In every state, every congressional district, and more than 95 percent of counties in the United States, public charities receive grants from governments at the local, state, federal, and territory levels, as well as foreign governments. Without these grants, most nonprofits would be unable to cover their expenses.
Of the 1.2 million nonprofits with a 501(c)(3) designation across the US, more than 80,000 electronically filed a full IRS Form 990 and reported receiving government grants each year from 2021 to 2023. This represents about a third of 501(c)(3) nonprofits that electronically filed a full Form 990 each year. (We refer to these organizations as “nonprofits” for simplicity.) The total value of these nonprofits’ government grants equaled at least $240 billion each year ($304 billion in 2021, $294 billion in 2022, and $240 billion in 2023)—more than double the most recent estimates of foundation giving.
In 2023, there was no congressional district in the US where the typical nonprofit that reported receiving government grants would have been able to cover their expenses without their government grants. The same was true in 2022, and in 2021, there was only 1 district—out of 437—where the typical nonprofit that receives government grants would have been able to operate without its government grants. In every state, at least 60 percent of these nonprofits would have been operating at a loss without their government grants in 2021, 2022, and 2023. That share reached a high of 86 percent in 2023, as the map below shows.
Use the map to view national and state data from 2021 through 2023 on the nonprofits that would be at risk of not meeting their operating expenses without their government grants. Or, click on a state to see takeaways and data for counties and congressional districts, and a breakdown by nonprofit size and subsector, in the text and table that follow.
Without Their Government Grants, 60 to 86 Percent of Nonprofits in Every State Would Have Been at Risk of Operating at a Loss from 2021 to 2023
Methodology
The data for this analysis represent 501(c)(3) charitable organizations in the US that filed an IRS Form 990 electronically and reported receiving at least one government grant in each tax year. The data reflect 81,354 nonprofits in 2023, 93,114 nonprofits in 2022, and 107,958 nonprofits in 2021. Form 990-EZ filers and Form 990-N postcard filers, which do not report government grants, and nonprofits that do not receive government grants are excluded.
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, 2022, and 2023 tax years 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 2023 dataset contains data from 244,584 full 990 returns, which we filtered to only include the 81,354 returns reporting receipt of a government grant. The 2022 dataset reflects 261,830 full 990 returns, which we filtered to only include the 93,114 returns reporting government grants, and the 2021 dataset reflects 323,417 full 990 returns, which we filtered to only include the 107,958 returns reporting government grants. These years represent the most recent complete years of filers available in the NCCS archives, maximizing sample size and representativeness. In March 2026, we added 4,483 new 2021 filers to reflect tax records released since our last update.
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 $500,000 or more. Nonprofits falling below those thresholds have the option of filing Form 990EZ or 990N depending on their size. Smaller nonprofits have the option of filing a full 990 form as well. Electronic filing became mandatory starting in 2022 (for 2021 tax year returns).
Form 990 filers are matched to geographies by linking efiler data with NCCS’s Unified Business Master File (BMF). The BMF contains nonprofit organizational attributes, including geocoded headquarter addresses. The Urban Institute's geocoding engine converts organization addresses into latitude and longitude coordinates. The coordinates are matched to states, counties, and congressional districts using a spatial join overlay. Organizations with incomplete address information or addresses belonging to US territories such as Puerto Rico and American Samoa are aggregated in a separate “Other US Jurisdictions/Unmapped” category. Congressional districts reflect 118th Congress boundaries (post–2020 Census redistricting), applied consistently across all three tax years. We arrive at 437 congressional districts by including DC and Puerto Rico in addition to the 435 voting districts.
Nonprofit subsector classification follows the NTEE-V2 coding system, developed by NCCS. This system, which refines the original National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) used by the IRS, categorizes organizations by their 12 primary activities or industries using the first three characters of the classification code.
Nonprofits are assigned to size categories based upon total expenses (Form 990, Part I, Line 18 or Part IX, Line 25, Column A).
Understanding the Metrics
Number of 990 filers with government grants refers to organizations reporting positive government grant revenue on Form 990, Part VIII, Line 1e in their 2021, 2022, or 2023 electronically filed returns. This measure is analyzed by geographic location, organizational size, and nonprofit subsector.
Total government grants ($) is defined as the aggregate value reported on Form 990, Part VIII, Line 1e in their 2021, 2022, or 2023 electronically filed returns, categorized by geographic location, organizational size categories, and nonprofit subsector. The IRS instructs nonprofits to enter "the total amount of contributions in the form of grants or similar payments" and specifies that nonprofits should include government payments that primarily and directly benefit the general public, as opposed to benefiting the governmental unit that issued the payment. Note that this measure understates total government funding, as it excludes some forms of public support, such as Medicare/Medicaid payments, that 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. It is a measure of grant dependence, not a prediction of what will happen under any particular policy scenario. Many organizations have reserves, alternative revenue sources, or other financial cushions that would reduce the real-world impact of grant reductions.
About
This data visualization was funded by Urban Institute’s National Center for Charitable Statistics. Research efforts were led by Thiyaghessan Poongundranar, Jesse Lecy, Laura Tomasko, Teresa Harrison, and Hannah Martin. Samantha Cressman, Alex Dallman, Kaitlin HaeHae, Rachel Kenney, Rachel Marconi, Evy Park, and Zach VeShancey also contributed to the creation of this data visualization.
