Does Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Muriel McBrien Kauffman Family Foundation, The Francis Family Foundation, Greater Kansas City Community Foundation.

Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee

Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee at a glance

· Private foundation

Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee

Q: What does Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (93%), Education (4%), Recreation & Sports (1%).

Q: Who are Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Lyric Opera of Kansas City Inc ($4.0M), Kansas City Symphony ($2.1M), Kansas City Ballet Association ($908k).

Q: Does Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 6% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$2.7M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$300k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$15MEducation$617kRecreation & Sports$220kPhilanthropy$200kHuman Services$37kInternational$10k

02FY2025 · 75 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k19 grants · $96k
$10k–50k41 grants · $827k
$50k–250k14 grants · $1.5M
$250k+1 grant · $300k

$15,000

Median grant

States reached

$52M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
KANSAS CITY SYMPHONY	$300,000
LYRIC OPERA OF KANSAS CITY INC	$200,000
LYRIC OPERA OF KANSAS CITY INC	$200,000
LYRIC OPERA OF KANSAS CITY INC	$200,000
PERFORMING ARTS FOUNDATION OF KANSAS CITY DBA FOLLY THEATER	$178,677
KANSAS CITY ART INSTITUTE	$125,000
WILLIAM JEWELL COLLEGE (HARRIMAN-JEWELL SERIES)	$100,000
NELSON GALLERY FOUNDATION	$100,000
KAUFFMAN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS	$80,000
KANSAS CITY ART INSTITUTE	$65,000
KANSAS CITY BALLET ASSOCIATION	$60,000
UNICORN THEATRE	$50,000
LYRIC OPERA OF KANSAS CITY INC	$50,000
NELSON GALLERY FOUNDATION	$50,000
KANSAS CITY REPERTORY THEATRE INC	$50,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 99% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

99%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$16M · 60 repeat orgs$234k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +52% since the first grant, against +12% for those funded once.

60 repeat relationships: 50 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$16M

$192k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+52%

+12%

Still filing today

83%

47%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $43k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Arts & CultureEducationPhilanthropyInternationalHealthOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

LO
LYRIC OPERA OF KANSAS CITY INC
6× · 2020–2025 · $4.0M · revenue +76%
KC
KANSAS CITY SYMPHONY
6× · 2020–2025 · $2.1M · revenue +21%
KC
KANSAS CITY BALLET ASSOCIATION
6× · 2020–2025 · $908k · revenue +91%

Funded once

US
UNION STATION KANSAS CITY INC
one grant, 2023 · $50k · revenue +12%
TR
THE RABBIT HOLE KCgraduated
one grant, 2021 · $25k · revenue +111%
OC
OWEN COX DANCE GROUP MOVING ARTS KANSAS CITY
one grant, 2022 · $15k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Kansas City Public Theatre

Kansas City Public Theatre provides access to the arts through year-round theatre entertainment free of charge to the public This mission is carried out in two activities first by producing aesthetically and ideologically diverse new works…

Arts & Culture

Kansas City Chamber Orchestra Inc

The performance of fine classical music in both public and education outreach program concerts, utilizing talented local musicians, and frequently in partnership with other arts and community organizations.

—

Kansas City Artists Coalition Inc

The kansas city atrtists coalition is a nonprofit organization that promotes visual arts awareness

Arts & Culture

Harriman-Jewell Series

To bring the best of the performing arts to the Kansas City community.

Arts & Culture

Kc Fringe Festival Inc

Our mission is to attract diverse people, nuture artists, and strengthen kansas city economically by producing cultural, education, accessible, and affordable events that connect audiences, artists, businesses, and civic organizations. the…

Arts & Culture

Lee's Summit Symphony Orchestra

The mission of the lees summit symphony orchestra is to provide excellent musical experiences that enhance the quality of life for the community.

Arts & Culture

Know Theatre of Cincinnati

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…

Arts & Culture

Kirkland Center of the Performing Arts Dba Kirkland Performance Center

Kpc provides a gathering place where people come together to express themselves creatively, exchange ideas, share culture and connect with one another

Arts & Culture

Opera Kansas

Providing innovative works of one act and chamber operas for the public at large, and free or low cost performances for schools and nursing homes.

Arts & Culture

Kansas City Civic Orchestra

The kansas city civic orchestra, founded in 1959 by a group of local musicians to give themselves and other musicians an opportunity to perform in an orchestra, to provide community enrichment, interaction, and experience with symphonic…

—

Omaha Performing Arts Society

The mission of Omaha Performing Arts is to enrich the community through presentation of the highest quality arts and entertainment experiences; education and community engagement programs; and stewardship of three world-class venues - the…

Arts & Culture

Chamber Opera of Chicago

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kansas City Young Audiences Inc; the most unlike its peers is Wylliams-Henry Productions. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

62 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 62 of the 81 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

61/62

Grantees still filing

47/62

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Arts & Culture$12,692,568Other$1,996,798Education$1,258,267Philanthropy$261,000Health$10,000International$10,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Muriel McBrien Kauffman Family FoundationMO103.1× affinity47 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Muriel McBrien Kauffman Family Foundation · The Francis Family Foundation · Greater Kansas City Community Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City · Metropolitan Arts Council of Greater Kansas City · The H & R Block Foundation · Copaken Family Foundation · The Sunderland Foundation · William T Kemper Foundation Commerce Bank Trustee · The Estelle S and Robert a Long Ellis Foundation · Miller-Mellor Association · R a Long Foundation 600 Plaza West Bldg

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

20report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home