· Public charity
El Sistema USA
EL SISTEMA USA works to ensure every child has access to high-quality music education that celebrates their voice and potential, by supporting a national network of organizations & educators.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHARLOTTE SYMPHONY | $20,000 |
| WHIN MUSIC COMMUNITY SCHOOL | $20,000 |
| EMPIRE STATE YOUTH ORCHESTRA | $15,000 |
| TRENTON MUSIC MAKERS | $15,000 |
| NORTHEAST COMMUNITY CENTER | $15,000 |
| SALTY CRICKET COMPOSERS COLLECTIVE | $10,000 |
| BUFFALO STRING WORKS | $10,000 |
| PROJECT MUSIC | $10,000 |
| HARMONY PROJECT TULSA | $10,000 |
| ACCENT PONTIAC | $10,000 |
| RIVERSIDE ARTS ACADEMY | $10,000 |
| COMMUSICATION | $10,000 |
| MAKE MUSIC NOLA | $10,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–20) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 74% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
13 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2020, 0 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2020, 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
- CSCHARLOTTE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SOCIETY INC3× · 2018–2020 · $90k · revenue +147%
Capital Harmony Works Inc3× · 2018–2020 · $68k · revenue +62%- ESEMPIRE STATE YOUTH ORCHESTRA INC3× · 2018–2020 · $68k · revenue +19%
Funded once
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.
Intonation kids explore their limitless potential by learning to play instruments and forming their own rock bands. Our year-round classes make music accessible to children in low-income neighborhoods by providing them with instruments,…
To initiate and develop musci education programs for Hermosa Beach youth.
Music can transform lives especially for kids growing up in difficult circumstances. Music Instruments N Kids Hands mission is to introduce students to science technology engineering arts and math STEAM through an interactive and digital…
Year-long program designed to nurture students enjoyment of music as well as develop their musical skills and self-confidence.
Our mission is to establish the musical arts as a more essential and valuable experience in the lives of the general public. Our Access to Music program brings classical music to a new broad audience through free concerts events and…
The newport string project is a chamber music performance and youth mentoring initiative committed to making inspiring musical experiences accessible for all in newport, ri. string instrument lessons are provided free of charge to students…
Project STEP, Inc., (Project STEP) was incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation in 1983 under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Project STEP uses classical music training to bring positive change to the lives of students,…
Armstrong community music school offers exciting opportunities to learn the joys of music for students of all ages and skill levels, from early childhood to adult.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Buffalo String Works Inc and the most unlike its peers is Riverside Arts Academy. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 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. 12 of the 13 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 CHARLOTTE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds Capital Harmony Works Inc ↗
- Who funds EMPIRE STATE YOUTH ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHEAST COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds MAKE MUSIC NOLA ↗
- Who funds PROJECT MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds Riverside Arts Academy ↗
- Who funds COMMUSICATION ↗
- Who funds Harmony Project Tulsa ↗
- Who funds SALTY CRICKET COMPOSERS COLLECTIVE ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO STRING WORKS INC ↗
- Who funds ACCENT PONTIAC 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: D'Addario Foundation Inc · The Carnegie Hall Corporation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 El Sistema USA 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.
- Project Music Inc — 19% of income from government
- Capital Harmony Works 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.