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· Public charity

Unique Projects Inc

The organizations mission is to serve the performing arts community by connecting artists to the funding resources they need to make and show their work.

$1.1M
Granted FY2025still arriving
10
Grants FY2025still arriving
4
States reached
$175k
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, FY2017 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$2.4MCivil Rights$255kRecreation & Sports$160kYouth Development$137kScience & Tech$47kCrime & Legal$35kEmployment$31kCommunity Improvement$15kOther$0
02FY2025 · 10 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 10 grants below total $412,398, the rows itemized in this filing. The $1,089,142 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $676,744 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k1 grant · $7k
  • $10k–50k7 grants · $106k
  • $50k–250k2 grants · $300k
$15,650
Median grant
4
States reached
$11k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
ROGUE THEATER COMPANY$175,126
BALLET ACADEMY EAST$124,822
AVID (Artistic Ventures in Dance)$21,292
BEREST DANCE CENTER$19,322
FIT4DANCE$15,650
SLOWDANGER$13,990
STEPS STUDIOS INC$13,113
Boss Mamas Corporation$11,990
HYBRID MOVEMENT COMPANY$10,166
FUTURIFICO LLC$6,927
02The need
03

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:

Its human-services grants (FY24–24, $35k) land where the poverty rate runs at 20%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%Dream Deferred Inc: $35k → 20%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.

82%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$2.6M · 14 repeat orgs$572k to everyone else

14 repeat relationships: 9 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

14
17

Total granted

$2.6M
$397k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

0%
+101%

Still filing today

14%
6%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 58% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $175k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
Arts & CultureHuman ServicesOther
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

  • BA
    BALLET ACADEMY EAST
    9× · 2017–2025 · $978k
  • NY
    NEW YORKERS FOR CULTURE AND ARTS INC
    7× · 2019–2025 · $422k
  • SS
    STEPS STUDIOS INC
    5× · 2021–2025 · $345k

Funded once

  • PN
    PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET
    one grant, 2020 · $80k
  • TS
    THE STARS OF TOMORROW PROJECT INCgraduated
    one grant, 2023 · $54k · revenue +101% · 31% of their budget
  • RD
    REGINALD DWAYNE BETTS LLC
    one grant, 2020 · $50k
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
04the grantee network

5 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. 5 of the 32 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.

2
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
3/5
Grantees still filing
2/5
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

BALLET ACADEMY EAST: $977,628 · OtherBALLET ACADEMY EASTSTEPS STUDIOS INC: $344,745 · OtherSTEPS STUDIOS INCSLOWDANGER: $195,823 · OtherSLOWDANGERROGUE THEATER COMPANY: $175,126 · OtherROGUE THEATER COMPANYHYBRID MOVEMENT COMPANY: $102,969 · Other+23 more: $773,579 · Other+23 moreNEW YORKERS FOR CULTURE AND ARTS INC: $422,476 · Arts & CultureNEW YORKERS FOR CU…THE STARS OF TOMORROW PROJECT INC: $53,719 · Arts & CultureTHE STARS OF TOMOR…AVID Dance Corp: $43,771 · Arts & CultureAVID Dance CorpDREAM DEFERRED INC: $35,404 · Human Services
Other$2,569,870Arts & Culture$519,966Human Services$35,404

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

25%50%75%100%$100kgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetNEW YORKERS FOR CULTURE AND ARTS INC: $422,476 over 7y, 4.8% of budgetTHE STARS OF TOMORROW PROJECT INC: $53,719 over 1y, 31% of budgetAVID Dance Corp: $43,771 over 2y, 35% of budget
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.

  • Who funds NEW YORKERS FOR CULTURE AND ARTS INC ↗
  • Who funds Pascal Rioult Dance Theatre Inc ↗
  • Who funds THE STARS OF TOMORROW PROJECT INC ↗
  • Who funds AVID Dance Corp ↗
  • Who funds DREAM DEFERRED INC ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Unique Projects Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Unique Projects Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%3%10%23%40%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    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.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Unique Projects Inc?

    Find your warmest path to Unique Projects Inc through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.

    Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.

    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 32 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 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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