Form 990 for tax year 2025

Totals

Total revenue

$1,095,275

Total expenses

$939,534

Contributions and grants received

$1,035,686

Grants paid

$102,233

Program service revenue

$52,000

Investment income

$7,589

Other revenue

$0

Total assets, end of year

$1,006,083

Total liabilities, end of year

$89,721

Net assets or fund balances, end of year

$916,362

Program services expenses (Part IX)

$472,487

Management and general expenses

$220,219

Fundraising expenses

$246,828

Program service expenses (Part III)

$472,487

Program services were 50.3% of total expenses calculated — Part IX's program-services column over total expenses, both as filed.

Line items

Every line the filer filed in Parts VIII, IX and X, as filed and in filed order. Blank columns are left out, and the lines are not forced to add up to the totals above.

Mission and programs · 2025

• Journalism Grants, Editorial Support & Co Publishing (Primary Program) In 2025, the Economic Hardship Reporting Project (EHRP) advanced its mission to support journalists with lived experience of economic hardship by providing $72,032 in direct grants to 42 independent reporters, along with editorial guidance, mentorship, and publication support. EHRP also partnered with Magnum Photography to support an additional 510 visual journalists, expanding the organizations reach into documentary photography and visual storytelling. Together, these contributors produced more than 50 published pieces across a wide range of genresincluding investigations, features, first person essays, photo essays, illustrations, poetry, and multimedia reporting.EHRPs work appeared in major national and international outlets such as The New York Times, TIME, Teen Vogue, The Guardian, Mother Jones, The Nation, Rolling Stone, NPR, The Intercept, Esquire, and dozens more. These stories centered the experiences of working class Americans and illuminated the structural forces shaping inequality, housing instability, labor conditions, climate impacts, disability rights, and the rising cost of living. Collectively, EHRP supported journalism reached approximately 3 million people in 2025.EHRPs editorial model emphasizes culture jammingplacing stories about poverty, labor, and inequality in outlets that do not typically cover these issues. This strategy ensures that narratives about economic hardship reach unexpected audiences and disrupt conventional media framing. In 2025, EHRP continued to expand its presence in youth oriented and mainstream lifestyle publications, helping shift public understanding of economic precarity and working class life.Fellowships & Emerging Media Storytelling (NextGen Program) In response to rapidly changing media consumption habitsparticularly the rise of TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube as primary news sourcesEHRP expanded its investment in emerging media through its fellowship programs. In 2025, EHRP provided $30,200 in fellowship payments to seven fellows, including two NextGen Fellows supported by The Puffin Foundation. These fellows produced high impact short form videos and social media native reporting that translated complex economic issues into accessible, engaging content for younger audiences.NextGen Fellow Caitlyn Clark, a union communications worker and content creator with more than 132,000 TikTok followers, produced a series of videos contextualizing EHRP supported reporting with historical and policy analysis. Her work addressed topics such as labor rights, corporate power, the decline of local news, the use of stress as a management tactic, and the role of neoliberalism in shaping economic life. Her videos generated thousands of comments and shares, demonstrating strong resonance with younger viewers seeking clear, trustworthy explanations of economic issues.EHRPs second NextGen Fellow, Meagan Day, partnered with More Perfect Unions YouTube channel (1.64 million subscribers) to produce deeply reported videos on welfare reform, the Walton familys reliance on public assistance, and the privatization of public institutions. Her videos reached hundreds of thousands of viewers and sparked significant public engagement, with comments praising the clarity, depth, and urgency of the reporting.Through these fellowships, EHRP broadened its reach to audiences who increasingly consume news through short form video, ensuring that stories of economic hardship remain visible, relevant, and compelling across platforms.Multimedia Projects, Documentary Storytelling & Public Engagement EHRP continued to expand its impact through a wide range of multimedia projects, including photography exhibits, documentary films, podcasts, radio features, and public events. These projects amplify underrepresented voices, deepen public understanding of inequality, and extend the life of EHRP supported reporting across multiple formats.In 2025, EHRP supported the Californians Powering America photography exhibit, an immersive visual project highlighting the essential yet often invisible labor of immigrant workers across agriculture, construction, food service, healthcare, and disaster recovery. The exhibit brought national attention to the contradictions facing immigrant laborers who sustain the American economy while facing increasing criminalization and economic vulnerability.EHRP also supported several award winning documentary films. Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows, co produced with WNYC and The History Channel, won a Peabody Award for its powerful portrayal of the AIDS crisis and the communities whose stories were erased by poverty and racism. From the Barrio to the Frontline, produced with The Intercept, garnered more than 162,000 YouTube views. Stripped for Parts, a documentary about hedge funds impact on local newsrooms, was distributed on PBS and screened widely across the country. Additional films supported by EHRPincluding The Gas Station Attendant, Without Arrows, Renters in Revolt, and She Cried That Daywere featured at major festivals and on public media platforms.EHRP remained a strong supporter of audio journalism, funding podcasts and radio features that reached national audiences. Highlights included Natal, Nuoc: A Viet Cajun Story (winner of a Murrow Award), L.A. on the Margins, Going for Broke, and Between Land & Water. These projects brought lived experience storytelling to listeners across the country and deepened public understanding of how economic hardship intersects with race, gender, climate, and community resilience.EHRP also collaborated with artists and illustrators to extend the reach of reported stories, including partnerships with Diana Weymar and Molly Crabapple. These visual works helped bring attention to issues such as gentrification, disability rights, and tenant protections, and were featured in galleries, exhibitions, and major publications.Through these multimedia initiatives, EHRP broadened its impact beyond traditional journalism, ensuring that stories of working class Americans reach diverse audiences and endure across formats.

  Expenses $472,487 · Grants $102,233 · Revenue $52,000

As filed on the 2025 return.

Listed in Part VII

Compensation is as filed in Part VII: reportable pay from this organization and from related organizations, other compensation, and hours per week. The total, marked calculated, is our sum of the three dollar columns, with a blank column counted as $0; the form itself has no total. On a Form 990-EZ the columns are Part IV's instead, and on a Form 990-PF Part VIII's — compensation, contributions to benefit plans, and expense account — and the total sums those. A Schedule J breakdown is as filed: base pay, bonus, other, deferred compensation and nontaxable benefits from this organization, with any from related organizations beside each, and the filer's own total. It is shown with the Part VII listing of the same name on the same return. The form gives no key between the two, so that pairing is ours, and is marked matched by us.

Schedule J

Part I's answers as filed. A line not listed was left unanswered; on lines 1a and 3 that means the box was not checked.

Grants on this return

• Magnum Photos Inc

  $19,250

  Journalism grant

• Greene Fort Productions

  $10,150

  Journalism grant

Provenance

Return type

form_990

Tax year

2025

Filed

13 August 2026

IRS schema version

2025v4.1

Source object

202642259349300624

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