· Public charity
Arts Council of Fairfax County Inc
Artsfairfax is dedicated to expanding support for and access to arts and culture opportunities for all of fairfax county.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 33 grants below total $717,569 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $809,726 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $92,157 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 $10k11 grants · $73k
- $10k–50k18 grants · $410k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $235k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NEXTSTOP THEATRE COMPANY | $66,080 |
| MCLEAN PROJECT FOR THE ARTS (MPA) | $61,212 |
| 1ST STAGE | $55,539 |
| TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART (TEPHRA ICA) | $52,158 |
| CREATIVE CAULDRON | $46,056 |
| WORKHOUSE ARTS CENTER | $40,124 |
| TRAVELING PLAYERS ENSEMBLE INC | $40,118 |
| BALLETNOVA CENTER FOR DANCE | $37,198 |
| AMERICAN YOUTH PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRAS | $36,046 |
| FAIRFAX SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $26,974 |
| MUSIC FOR LIFE | $18,967 |
| CITY OF FAIRFAX BAND ASSOCIATION INC | $18,743 |
| FALL FOR THE BOOK INC | $17,556 |
| WE ROCK CANCER | $17,106 |
| IRANIAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY CENTER | $16,972 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–20, $68k) land where the poverty rate runs at 6%, against an area that typically sits at 5%. 100% of those 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 +17% since the first grant, against -4% for the ones you funded once.
47 repeat relationships — 31 still active in FY2025, 16 since wound down; 2 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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $21k 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
- 1S1ST STAGE INC9× · 2017–2025 · $410k · revenue +264%
- TEThe Elden Street Players DBA NextStop Theatre Co9× · 2017–2025 · $378k · revenue +36%
- MPMCLEAN PROJECT FOR THE ARTS9× · 2017–2025 · $336k · revenue +555%
Funded once
- MOMCLEAN ORCHESTRAone grant, 2017 · $17k · revenue -85%
- FFFall for the Book Incone grant, 2023 · $13k · revenue +3%
- CBCLASSICAL BALLET THEATRE INCone grant, 2018 · $11k · revenue -4%
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 Great Falls Philharmonics mission is to enrich the cultural landscape of northern Fairfax county by providing exceptional orchestral performances and engaging educational programs while fostering a deep connection between music and…
To foster enjoyment and education about chorale art and perform choral music by the highest caliber of professional singers.
The Alexandria Singers is a non-profit education and mixed voice choral group that performs predominately American popular music, including pop tunes, show tunes, golden oldies, country and jazz - the only one of its kind in the Washington…
Produce Opera for Children and to introduce the arts to young adults
The Georgetown Chorale is a 100-voice chorus of singers from across the D.C. metro area. Our all-volunteer ensemble includes singers of widely ranging age, experience and background who embrace the challenge of performing classical choral…
Provide a low cost theatre options for the community of washington
Philharmonia Northwest contributes to the vitality of the classical music community in the Pacific Northwest by presenting professional concerts highlighting the diverse past and present repertoire for chamber orchestra. It is also…
Present a chamber music concert series and organize ancillary educational and community engagement activities and partnerships in the Washington, DC area.
Performs classical music for the community
Our mission is offer theatrical productions.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mclean Orchestra and the most unlike its peers is Korean American Association of Greater. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 25 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) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
51 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. 51 of the 56 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 1ST STAGE INC ↗
- Who funds The Elden Street Players DBA NextStop Theatre Co ↗
- Who funds MCLEAN PROJECT FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds Creative Cauldron Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN YOUTH PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRAS ↗
- Who funds TRAVELING PLAYERS ENSEMBLE INC ↗
- Who funds BALLETNOVA CENTER FOR DANCE ↗
- Who funds TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART ↗
- Who funds Workhouse Arts Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Fairfax Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds CITY OF FAIRFAX BAND ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC ART RESTON ↗
- Who funds MUSIC FOR LIFE ↗
- Who funds THE CHORALIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MOUNT VERNON COMMUNITY CHILDREN'S THEATR ↗
- Who funds WOLF TRAP FOUNDATION FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds THE RESTON CHORALE ↗
- Who funds Vienna Jammers Percussion Ensemble Inc ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON WEST INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA INC ↗
- Who funds ACTING FOR YOUNG PEOPLE INC ↗
- Who funds THE DAILY POETRY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds City of Fairfax Theater Company ↗
- Who funds MVLE INC ↗
- Who funds ARTS HERNDON INC ↗
- Who funds IRANIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds FAIRFAX CHORAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds NEW DOMINION CHORALE INC ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds RESTON COMMUNITY PLAYERS INC ↗
- Who funds PROVIDENCE PLAYERS OF FAIRFAX ↗
- Who funds WE ROCK CANCER ↗
- Who funds Artists in Motion ↗
- Who funds THE CAPPIES INC ↗
- Who funds MOSAIC HARMONY ↗
- Who funds THE AMADEUS CONCERTS INC ↗
- Who funds VIENNA ARTS SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds MCLEAN ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds Cappies of The National Capital Area ↗
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: Latino Economic Development Corporation · The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia Inc · Dimick Foundation John M Lynham Jr Trustee · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Greater Washington Community Foundation · Network for Good · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Amazonsmile Foundation · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc
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 Council of Fairfax County Inc 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.