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Foundation Dossiers

Texas · Public charity

Theater District Improvement Inc

Theater District Improvement exists solely to serve as the administrator of Hotel Occupancy Taxes. These taxes are a pass-through from the City of Houston, which, by contract are distributed to the seven resident Theater District performing arts companies based upon an agreed-upon allocation.

$3.8M
Granted FY2019
8
Grants FY2019
8
Organizations funded FY2019
0%
First-time grantees FY2019
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2019
$509,020
Largest grant, FY2019
$842,467
Organizations funded a year
8 to 8
FY2017 to FY2019
States reached, FY2019
1

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2019, 0% of the organizations Theater District Improvement Inc funded were first-time grantees, receiving 0% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2019, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19
RenewedFirst-time
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY20198$3.8M0%
FY20188$3.7M0%
FY20178$3.7Mn/a
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2019.

Arts & Culture$11M

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2019, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
Houston Symphony Society$2,488,95833%
Houston Ballet Foundation$2,232,38332%
Houston Grand Opera Association Inc$2,185,88233%
Theatre Under the Stars Inc$1,507,00734%
Alley Theatre$1,456,80833%
Houston Downtown Improvement Inc dba Houston Theater District$749,920374%
Performing Arts Houston$378,93733%
Da Camera Society of Texas$199,32434%

Where it is load-bearing

Theater District Improvement Inc supplied at least a quarter of the budget for 1 of its grantees at some point. The chart plots its 8 largest grantees; load-bearing ones sit top left.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetHouston Symphony Society: $2,488,958 over 3y, 2.9% of budgetHouston Ballet Foundation: $2,232,383 over 3y, 2.4% of budgetHouston Grand Opera Association Inc: $2,185,882 over 3y, 3.1% of budgetTheatre Under the Stars Inc: $1,507,007 over 3y, 3.7% of budgetAlley Theatre: $1,456,808 over 3y, 2.7% of budgetHouston Downtown Improvement Inc dba Houston Theater District: $749,920 over 3y, 74% of budgetPerforming Arts Houston: $378,937 over 3y, 2.6% of budgetDa Camera Society of Texas: $199,324 over 3y, 3.7% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 8.

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.

Greater Houston Commu…The Cullen Trust for …Miller Theatre Adviso…Vivian L Smith Founda…Houston Arts AllianceAlbert & Ethel Herzst…Houston Endowment IncThe Brown Foundation …National Philanthropi…Donor Advised Charita…Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
Greater Houston Community FoundationTX15× affinity5 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Greater Houston Community Foundation · The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts · Miller Theatre Advisory Board Inc · Vivian L Smith Foundation · Houston Arts Alliance · Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation · Houston Endowment Inc · The Brown Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

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.

Compare Theater District Improvement Inc with peer funders

About Theater District Improvement Inc

How much does Theater District Improvement Inc give?
Theater District Improvement Inc reported 8 grants totaling $3,789,775 in its FY2019 IRS filing. It funded between 8 and 8 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2019.
What does Theater District Improvement Inc fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2019, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (100%).
Who are Theater District Improvement Inc's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2019: Houston Symphony Society ($2.5M), Houston Ballet Foundation ($2.2M), Houston Grand Opera Association Inc ($2.2M).
Does Theater District Improvement Inc fund new organizations?
In FY2019, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Which funders back the same organizations as Theater District Improvement Inc?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Greater Houston Community Foundation, The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts, Miller Theatre Advisory Board Inc.
Where is Theater District Improvement Inc based?
Theater District Improvement Inc is based in TX.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 8 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2019, released 2019. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2020) is on record and reports $120 of grant expense, but none of it to a named recipient. On a Form 990 that can mean grants abroad, filed by region only (Schedule F), grants under $5,000, which are not itemized, or a schedule referenced as an attachment the e-file does not carry. The figures above are therefore from FY2019, the most recent year this funder named its grantees.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Theater District Improvement’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