· Public charity
Artsmemphis
Supporting the arts to strengthen the memphis community.
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 46 grants below total $1,596,795 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,701,406 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $104,611 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 $10k7 grants · $51k
- $10k–50k30 grants · $584k
- $50k–250k8 grants · $581k
- $250k+1 grant · $381k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART | $381,000 |
| METAL MUSEUM INC | $116,000 |
| OPERA MEMPHIS | $82,750 |
| SOULSVILLE FOUNDATION | $81,000 |
| BALLET MEMPHIS | $63,000 |
| MEMPHIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $62,500 |
| COLLAGE DANCE COLLECTIVE | $61,000 |
| CIRCUIT PLAYHOUSE INC | $59,000 |
| NEW BALLET ENSEMBLE AND SCHOOL | $55,500 |
| THEATRE MEMPHIS | $48,000 |
| HATTILOO THEATRE | $34,000 |
| OVERTON PARK SHELL | $28,500 |
| CROSSTOWN ARTS | $25,100 |
| ORPHEUM THEATRE GROUP | $23,000 |
| CAZATEATRO BILINGUAL THEATRE GROUP | $22,550 |
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 17%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 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 +13% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
48 repeat relationships — 43 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 3 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $24k 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
- MBMemphis Brooks Museum of Art Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $1.3M · revenue +866%
- SFSOULSVILLE FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $696k · revenue +41%
- MSMEMPHIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC9× · 2017–2025 · $666k · revenue +66%
Funded once
- MEMEMPHIS EQUITY THROUGH ARTS INC3× · 2021–2023 · $485k · revenue -86%
- MSMemphis Slim Collaboratory Inc3× · 2021–2023 · $12k · revenue +13%
- LCLorraine Civil Rights Museum Foundationgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $10k · revenue +187%
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.
To cultivate the arts in Jefferson County and the State of Alabama.
Art youth initiatives
MUSE is an inclusive and feminist choral community advocating for peace and social justice. We unite our voices to raise awareness and inspire change in ourselves, our audiences, and our world through partnerships that honor the humanity…
Street Theatre Company is a professional non-profit arts organization dedicated to pioneering innovative modern theater in Nashville. Our aim is to engage our audience with universal stories that speak to the human experience and challenge…
To bravely imagine the power and passion of opera and who can sing and enjoy it.
Paint Memphis builds community one wall at a time through public art and our arts education program expanding access and arts education to all Memphians regardless of their location identity socio-economic status or ability. We engage over…
Entertainment | Opera Performing Arts Organization.
Production of annual theater festival
Educational & entertaining concert production
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Memphis Equity Through Arts Inc and the most unlike its peers is Memphis Slim Collaboratory Inc. 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 21 years old; the field is 61. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 14% startups (under 5 years old) — 8% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% 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.
62 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.
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 Memphis Brooks Museum of Art Inc ↗
- Who funds OPERA MEMPHIS INC ↗
- Who funds BALLET MEMPHIS CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds SOULSVILLE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MEMPHIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds CIRCUIT PLAYHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds THEATRE MEMPHIS ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ORNAMENTAL METAL MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds MEMPHIS EQUITY THROUGH ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds NEW BALLET ENSEMBLE INC ↗
- Who funds COLLAGE DANCE COLLECTIVE ↗
- Who funds HATTILOO THEATRE ↗
- Who funds INDIE MEMPHIS ↗
- Who funds THE COLLECTIVE THE CLTV INC ↗
- Who funds THE OVERTON PARK SHELL INC ↗
- Who funds The Blues Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds ORPHEUM THEATRE GROUP ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds THE URBANART COMMISSION ↗
- Who funds IRIS ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds CARPENTER ART GARDEN ↗
- Who funds GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER ↗
- Who funds CREATIVE AGING MEMPHIS ↗
- Who funds Music Export Memphis ↗
- Who funds Memphis Rock N Soul Museum Inc ↗
- Who funds Crosstown Arts ↗
- Who funds PRIZM ENSEMBLE INC ↗
- Who funds Everystory ↗
- Who funds BEALE STREET CARAVAN INC ↗
- Who funds ANGEL STREET INC ↗
- Who funds CAZATEATRO BILNGUAL THEATER GROUP ↗
- Who funds YOUNG ACTORS GUILD INC ↗
- Who funds PERFECTING GIFTS INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds Lee Jazz Omega Inc Memphis Jazz Workshop ↗
- Who funds VOICES OF THE SOUTH ↗
- Who funds ARTISTS FOR COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION INTL ↗
- Who funds GERMANTOWN COMMUNITY THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds HARMONIC SOUTH STRING ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds MEMPHIS YOUTH SYMPHONY PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds NEW DAY CHILDREN'S THEATRE INC ↗
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: Community Foundation of Greater Memphis Inc · Thomas W Briggs Foundation Inc · Jr Hyde III Family Foundation · Christian Community Foundation of Memphis · Memphis Equity Through Arts Inc · The Assisi Foundation of Memphis Inc · Plough Foundation · Jewish Foundation of Memphis · Humanities Tennessee · The Kemmons Wilson Family Foundation · Adams Arthur & Alice Fdn · Rose Montgomery Johnston Family Foundation
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 Artsmemphis 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.