· Public charity
Arts and Culture Alliance of Greater Knoxville
The mission of the arts & culture alliance of greater knoxville is to serve and support a diverse community of artists, arts organizations, and cultural institutions.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 41% of ARTS AND CULTURE ALLIANCE OF GREATER KNOXVILLE’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 41 grants below total $951,168 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,240,466 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $289,298 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $17k
- $10k–50k38 grants · $842k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $93k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DOGWOOD ARTS FESTIVAL | $92,500 |
| CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE | $41,000 |
| JAMES WHITE FORT | $35,000 |
| MABRY-HAZEN HOUSE | $35,000 |
| BLOUNT MANSION | $35,000 |
| MARBLE SPRINGS STATE HISTORIC SITE | $35,000 |
| TN STAGE COMPANY | $33,600 |
| KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART | $31,250 |
| KNOXVILLE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $31,250 |
| KNOXVILLE OPERA COMPANY | $31,250 |
| KNOX HERITAGE INC | $29,275 |
| BIG EARS FESTIVAL | $29,000 |
| BIJOU THEATRE CENTER | $24,560 |
| WORD PLAYERS | $23,900 |
| EAST TN HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $22,050 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +46% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
37 repeat relationships — 34 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $105k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- KMKNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART9× · 2017–2025 · $367k · revenue +41%
- KSKNOXVILLE SYMPHONY SOCIETY INCORPORATED9× · 2017–2025 · $367k · revenue +34%
- DADOGWOOD ARTS INC9× · 2017–2025 · $318k · revenue +24%
Funded once
- RARIVER AND RAIL THEATRE COMPANYgraduatedone grant, 2024 · $40k · revenue +190%
- JOJOY OF MUSIC YOUTH MUSIC SCHOOL CORPORATIONone grant, 2023 · $40k · revenue -9%
- CTCOMMUNITY TELEVISION OF KNOXVILLEone grant, 2024 · $40k · revenue 0%
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The mission of the arts & culture alliance of greater knoxville is to serve and support a diverse community of artists, arts organizations, and cultural institutions.
Historical art and cultural programs and classes conducted for the knox county community.
The purpose of this organization is to establish and maintain an endowment fund to preserve and maintain the facilities of the tennessee theatre established in 1928 in knoxville, tennessee in order that the historic tennesssee theatre…
The tennessee association of museums empowers tennessee museums to inspire, engage, and connect to their audiences and communities.
Arts council of crockett tennessee was established to foster the development and encouragement of the arts in crockett county
To inspire and empower all children through transformative learning experiences. our vision is to make our community the best place for all to learn through the power of play.
Dedicated to bringing nationally and internationally know performing artist and ensembles to calhoun county. the organization exist to stimulate cultural interst and to enhance the quality of life of the citizens of the area by making…
To Preserve and teach Local Hictory
Knoxville botanical gardens and arboretum provides and maintains gardens for the benefit and enjoyment of the general public.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Historic Tennessee Theatre Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Union County Opry. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 30 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
48 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 48 of the 57 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds KNOXVILLE SYMPHONY SOCIETY INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds KNOXVILLE OPERA COMPANY ↗
- Who funds DOGWOOD ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds BIJOU THEATRE CENTER ↗
- Who funds CUMBERLAND COMMUNITIES COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds GOVERNOR WILLIAM BLOUNT MANSION ↗
- Who funds HAZEN HISTORICAL MUSEUM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BIG EARS FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds Governor John Sevier Memorial Assoc ↗
- Who funds HISTORIC TENNESSEE THEATRE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JAMES WHITES FORT ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE STAGE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF TENNESSEE ANTIQUITIES ↗
- Who funds HOLA HORA LATINA ↗
- Who funds JUBILEE COMMUNITY ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds KNOX HERITAGE INC ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE VALLEY AGRICULTURAL AND INDUSTRIAL FAIR ↗
- Who funds IJAMS NATURE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Knoxville Jazz Orchestra ↗
- Who funds Appalachian Equality Chorus ↗
- Who funds THE WORDPLAYERS ↗
- Who funds Dr Martin Luther King Commemorative ↗
- Who funds The Bottom ↗
- Who funds BECK CULTURAL EXCHANGE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds MARBLE CITY OPERA ↗
- Who funds ASIAN CULTURE CENTER OF TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds Knoxville Childrens Theatre Inc ↗
- Who funds THEATRE KNOXVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds Knox County Museum of Education ↗
- Who funds KNOX MAKERS ↗
- Who funds RIVER AND RAIL THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds EAST TENNESSEE PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds JOY OF MUSIC YOUTH MUSIC SCHOOL CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY TELEVISION OF KNOXVILLE ↗
- Who funds FOOTHILLS CRAFT GUILD INC ↗
- Who funds KNOXVILLE HISTORY PROJECT ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: East Tennessee Foundation · The Aslan Foundation · Haslam Family Foundation Inc · Lamp Foundation · Humanities Tennessee · Regal Foundation · Texas Instruments Foundation · The Boyd Foundation · Lawson Family Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Network for Good
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Arts and Culture Alliance of Greater Knoxville funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.
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