· Public charity
Greater Columbus Arts Council
Mission: to champion and elevate the arts and cultural expression of greater columbus.vision: power of art realized.
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 132 grants below total $15,892,987 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $18,470,607 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $2,577,620 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 $10k12 grants · $82k
- $10k–50k89 grants · $1.9M
- $50k–250k13 grants · $1.6M
- $250k+18 grants · $12M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FRANKLIN COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $1,315,000 |
| CAPA | $1,250,000 |
| COLUMBUS MUSEUM OF ART | $1,133,000 |
| FRIENDS OF THE CONSERVATORY | $1,057,451 |
| COLUMBUS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $1,012,500 |
| BALLET METROPOLITAN INC (DBA BALLETMET) | $896,607 |
| OHIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY THE | $695,000 |
| NATIONAL VETERANS MEMORIAL AND MUSEUM OPERATING CORPORATION | $655,000 |
| WEXNER CENTER FOUNDATION DBA WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS | $606,228 |
| SHADOART PRODUCTIONS | $544,041 |
| PROMUSICA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA | $528,765 |
| GATEWAY FILM FOUNDATION | $516,839 |
| JAZZ ARTS GROUP | $464,175 |
| SHORT NORTH STAGE | $390,802 |
| COLUMBUS MUSIC COMMISSION | $350,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $120k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 63% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 7% of Greater Columbus Arts Council’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 100% of the giving stays in OH; read by stated purpose it is 93% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +29% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
124 repeat relationships — 98 still active in FY2025, 26 since wound down; 15 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $222k 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
- FOFRIENDS OF THE CONSERVATORY9× · 2017–2025 · $7.6M · revenue +191% · 58% of their budget
- FCFRANKLIN COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY DBA COSI COLUMBUS9× · 2017–2025 · $6.6M · revenue +16%
- CACOLUMBUS ASSOCIATION FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS9× · 2017–2025 · $6.5M · revenue +66%
Funded once
- CSCREW SC TEAM COMPANY LLCone grant, 2023 · $150k
- FCFRANKLIN COUNTY STADIUM INCone grant, 2023 · $150k
- SHSIDE HUSTLE SYNDICATE INCone grant, 2019 · $28k
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.
he Gahanna area arts council connects and enriches our community through participation in and engagement with the arts.
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…
To establish a forum for community engagement and educational outreach through collaboration with emerging and established artists and the creation, production and presentation of a diverse array of theatre, music, dance, and exhibitions…
The mission of the cleveland museum of art (cma) is to fulfill its dual roles as one of the world's most distinguished comprehensive art museums and as one of northeastern ohio's principal civic and cultural institutions. the museum,…
Know Theatre is a small professional theatre showcasing voices, new works, & plays that embrace the inherent theatricality of the live experience. Know Theatre seeks to be a place where artists and audiences feel welcome to take artistic…
Music Performance - Performing free concerts of new symphonic music
Non-profit organization dedicated to presenting frees concert of Classical Music
To produce and maintain world class jazz performances in downtown Toledo coupled with advanced educational programs to develop long term interest understanding and audience growth in jazz as Americas original art form within and around the…
To provide musical experiences for audiences throughout cincinnati and around the country.
Columbus museum of art & design enriches and engages the community through public visual art and design experiences.
One Ounce Opera Production Company (aka One Ounce Opera) invites audiences to immerse themselves in dynamic storytelling. We explore contemporary topics through the lenses of diverse trailblazers, forging new paths in the art form for all…
Enriching the community through the arts.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Contemporary Theatre of Ohio and the most unlike its peers is Trinity Theatre Company. 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 17 years old; the field is 22. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 12% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
114 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. 114 of the 170 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 FRIENDS OF THE CONSERVATORY ↗
- Who funds FRANKLIN COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY DBA COSI COLUMBUS ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS ASSOCIATION FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds BALLET METROPOLITAN INC ↗
- Who funds WEXNER CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SHADOART PRODUCTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION ↗
- Who funds GATEWAY FILM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ARTS PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds PRO MUSICA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA OF COLUMBUS INC ↗
- Who funds JAZZ ARTS GROUP ↗
- Who funds THE OPERA ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL OHIO ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL VETERANS MEMORIAL AND MUSEUM OPERATING CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds THE CONTEMPORARY THEATRE OF OHIO ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS CHILDREN'S THEATRE ↗
- Who funds Ohio Designer Craftsmen ↗
- Who funds SHORT NORTH STAGE INC ↗
- Who funds OHIO ALLIANCE FOR ARTS EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN THEATRE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds GLASS AXIS INC ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS MUSIC COMMISSION ↗
- Who funds THE THURBER HOUSE ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS & CENTRAL OHIO CHILDREN'S CHORUS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS GAY MEN'S CHOIR ↗
- Who funds MAROON ARTS GROUP ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS DANCE THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds MADLAB ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS LANDMARKS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ACTORS THEATRE OF COLUMBUS ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF EARLY MUSIC ↗
- Who funds WILD GOOSE CREATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds OPERA PROJECT COLUMBUS INC ↗
- Who funds OHIODANCE INC ↗
- Who funds CARTOON CROSSROADS COLUMBUS ↗
- Who funds CHAMBER MUSIC COLUMBUS ↗
- Who funds OHIOANA LIBRARY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Asian Festival Corp ↗
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: Columbus Foundation · L Brands Foundation · Cardinal Health Foundation · Ingram-White Castle Foundation · American Electric Power Foundation · Harry C Moores Foundation · United Way of Central Ohio Inc · Puffin Foundation West Ltd · Encova Foundation of Ohio · Hinson Family Trust Foundation · The Reinberger Foundation · Columbus Jewish 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 Greater Columbus Arts Council 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.