· Public charity
Reading Musical Foundation
To advance and advocate for music education and appreciation in berks 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 13 grants below total $265,660 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $725,784 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $460,124 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–50k5 grants · $96k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $118k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| READING SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $118,395 |
| OLIVET BOYS & GIRLS CLUB | $32,000 |
| RINGGOLD BAND | $20,000 |
| READING CHORAL SOCIETY | $18,500 |
| BERKS ARTS | $14,200 |
| READING POPS ORCHESTRA | $11,700 |
| FRIENDS OF CHAMBER MUSIC | $8,800 |
| WCR CENTER FOR THE ARTS | $8,100 |
| BERKS SINFONIETTA | $8,000 |
| YOCUM INSTITUTE FOR ARTS EDUCATION | $7,500 |
| BERKS YOUTH CHORUS | $6,465 |
| VOX PHILIA | $6,000 |
| OPUS ONE BERKS CHAMBER CHOIR | $6,000 |
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
14 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k 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
- RSREADING SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION9× · 2017–2025 · $1.1M · revenue +56%
- OBOLIVET BOYS' & GIRLS' CLUB OF READING AND BERKS COUNTY PA9× · 2017–2025 · $243k · revenue +1%
- RCREADING CHORAL SOCIETY9× · 2017–2025 · $166k · revenue +12%
Funded once
- OOOPUS ONE BERKS CHAMBER CHOIRone grant, 2025 · $6k
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.
Performs classical music for the community
Founded in 1990, Berkshire Children's Chorus explores the globe and travels through time by singing music from various cultures and eras, while also sparking new friendships between singers from across the region. BCC is committed to…
Provide concerts for the members of the community.
Symphonic concerts
Offering Professional Music Concerts
Berkshire Lyric is a community of choruses where singers ages six to eighty explore a world of beauty through the choral arts. Founded in 1963 Berkshire Lyric continues to explore a wide variety of great music for chorus. We believe that…
Ballet and artistic performances for the public
Performing arts concerts and arts in education
Providing an annual series of chamber music concerts for audiences in Berkeley and Lafayette, California, for the past 33 years.
YOBC offers participants large ensembles, chamber groups, master classes, our Students-In-Concert outreach program. The focus is on superior classical music education while challenging students to achieve excellence.
Since 1991, the Ambler Choral Society provides quality classical choral music to the greater Ambler community. We have performed at least two concerts each year except during the covid pandemic. The Choral Society has participated in many…
Musical performance
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Reading Symphony Orchestra Association and the most unlike its peers is The Yocum Institute for Arts Education Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 15 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 READING SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds OLIVET BOYS' & GIRLS' CLUB OF READING AND BERKS COUNTY PA ↗
- Who funds READING CHORAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds RINGGOLD BAND INC ↗
- Who funds BERKS ARTS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds BERKS YOUTH CHORUS INC ↗
- Who funds READING POPS ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF CHAMBER MUSIC OF READING ↗
- Who funds THE YOCUM INSTITUTE FOR ARTS EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds BERKS SINFONIETTA INC ↗
- Who funds BERKS OPERA WORKSHOP ↗
- Who funds GOGGLE WORKS ↗
- Who funds WCR CENTER FOR THE ARTS 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: Berks County Community Foundation Inc · The Wyomissing Foundation Inc · The Presser Foundation · Arthur Judson Foundation Inc · Marlin Miller Jr Family Foundation · The Breidegam Family Foundation · Arizona Community Foundation · Berkshire Charitable Foundation · Jerlyn Foundation · Henry Janssen Foundation · Bartlett Fdn · The Catherine V and Martin Hofmann 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 Reading Musical Foundation 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.