· Public charity
Howard County Arts Council
To enrich and uplift our communities by advancing the arts, artists, and arts organizations for the benefit of all.
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 $602,832 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $755,931 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $153,099 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 $10k16 grants · $102k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $329k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $171k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COLUMBIA CENTER FOR THEATRICAL ARTS | $60,000 |
| COLUMBIA FESTIVAL | $55,650 |
| COLUMBIA ORCHESTRA | $55,500 |
| CHAMBER MUSIC MARYLAND | $43,251 |
| KINETICS DANCE THEATRE | $41,250 |
| BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $34,160 |
| COLUMBIA PRO CANTARE LTD | $33,311 |
| MARYLAND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY INC | $30,107 |
| BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART | $22,000 |
| MARYLAND SCIENCE CENTER | $21,515 |
| CENTER STAGE ASSOCIATES | $20,529 |
| WALTERS ART MUSEUM | $17,735 |
| PORT DISCOVERY CHILDREN'S MUSEUM | $15,561 |
| HOWARD COUNTY POETRY & LIT SOCIETY | $14,800 |
| NATIONAL AQUARIUM IN BALTIMORE | $12,736 |
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 (FY24–25, $24k) land where the poverty rate runs at 6%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +30% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
36 repeat relationships — 33 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- CCColumbia Center For Theatrical Arts Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $564k · revenue +12%
- CFCOLUMBIA FESTIVAL INC9× · 2017–2025 · $549k · revenue +25%
- COCOLUMBIA ORCHESTRA OF HOWARD COUNTY INC9× · 2017–2025 · $458k · revenue +20%
Funded once
- HCHOWARD COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEMone grant, 2021 · $24k
- RBRed Branch Theatre Incone grant, 2017 · $9k
- CPCULTURA PLENERA INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $7k · revenue ×14 · 83% of their budget
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.
Classic Theatre of Marylands mission is to produce bold re-imagined entertaining and accessible interpretations of classical works contemporary plays and musicals with a core commitment to the works of Shakespeare and other major…
The mission of the baltimore chamber orchestra is to move, inspire, and provide educational opportunities to baltimore's community through world-class performances.
The District of Columbia Arts Center serves the Washington DC area by presenting high caliber and challenging works. It encourages professionalism among artists by providing a forum for educational and cultural exchange. DCAC was founded…
The mission of maryland opera, inc is (1) the promotion, production and performance in a variety of venues, of live opera experiences to audiences of all ages and backgrounds, (11) the creation and continuation of opera education and…
Opera baltimore creates a thrilling, meaningful shared experience between our audience and our artists. our streamlined format focuses on the primary element of opera: the unamplified human voice. featuring top flight professional opera…
Shriver hall concert series's mission is to enrich the baltimore community through outstanding chamber music and recital experiences.
To enrich and uplift our communities by advancing the arts, artists, and arts organizations for the benefit of all.
The society was created to support a chorus, which performs public concerts of choral & orchestra music. the mission is to build a stronger, more connected, more inspired community by celebrating the joy of choral music through exceptional…
To provide innovative management of the silver spring black box theatre to both resident companies and other artists and organizations as the rental calendar allows
To promote the interest in and enjoyment of dance arts by providing dancers an opportunity to study and perform; by providing choreographers an outlet for creative expression and training; by providing quality entertainment and education…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Center Stage Associates Inc and the most unlike its peers is Cultura Plenera 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 43 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% 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.
30 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. 30 of the 40 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 Columbia Center For Theatrical Arts Inc ↗
- Who funds COLUMBIA FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds COLUMBIA ORCHESTRA OF HOWARD COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds CHAMBER MUSIC MARYLAND INC ↗
- Who funds BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds KINETICS DANCE THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds COLUMBIA PRO CANTARE LTD ↗
- Who funds MARYLAND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER STAGE ASSOCIATES INC ↗
- Who funds BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds MARYLAND ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL AQUARIUM INC ↗
- Who funds WALTERS ART MUSEUM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE BALTIMORE CHILDREN'S MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds HOWARD COUNTY POETRY & LITERARY SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF INDUSTRY INC ↗
- Who funds CHESAPEAKE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds Howard County Chinese School Inc ↗
- Who funds SILHOUETTE STAGES INC ↗
- Who funds HOPEWORKS OF HOWARD COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds HOWARD COMMUNITY COLLEGE EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MANNEQART ↗
- Who funds INDIAN CULTURAL ASSOCIATION OF HOWARD COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds WINTER GROWTH INC ↗
- Who funds HOWARD COUNTY SUMMER THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds BLOSSOMS OF HOPE THE HOWARD COUNTY CHER ↗
- Who funds Red Branch Theatre Inc ↗
- Who funds CULTURA PLENERA INC ↗
- Who funds EC250 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: The Community Foundation of Howard County Inc · The John J Leidy Foundation Inc · T Rowe Price Program for Charitable Giving Inc · Dr Frank C Marino Foundation Inc · The Kahlert Foundation Inc · The United Way of Central Maryland Inc · Baltimore Community Foundation Inc · The William G Baker Jr Memorial Fund · The Horizon Foundation of Howard County Inc · Wr Grace Foundation Inc · T Rowe Price Foundation · France-Merrick 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 Howard County 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- The Baltimore Children's Museum Inc — 33% of income from government
- Hopeworks of Howard County Inc — 29% of income from government
- Columbia Festival Inc — 22% of income from government
- Chesapeake Shakespeare Company — 16% of income from government
- Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Inc — 11% of income from government
- Maryland Academy of Sciences — 9% of income from government
- Baltimore Museum of Industry Inc — 7% of income from government
- Center Stage Associates Inc — 7% of income from government
- The American Visionary Art Museum Inc — 6% of income from government
- Baltimore Museum of Art — 4% of income from government
- Maryland Zoological Society Inc — 3% of income from government
- National Aquarium Inc — 1% of income from government
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.