· Public charity
United Performing Arts Fund Inc
The mission of the united performing arts fund, inc.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k12 grants · $74k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $58k
- $50k–250k7 grants · $1.0M
- $250k+7 grants · $5.9M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MILWAUKEE REPERTORY THEATER | $1,602,071 |
| MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $1,360,334 |
| MILWAUKEE BALLET | $809,663 |
| FIRST STAGE MILWAUKEE | $734,983 |
| FLORENTINE OPERA | $579,034 |
| MILWAUKEE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $436,136 |
| SKYLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE | $328,666 |
| PRESENT MUSIC | $191,642 |
| DANCEWORKS | $171,860 |
| RENAISSANCE THEATERWORKS | $168,238 |
| BLACK ARTS MILWAUKEE | $166,667 |
| NEXT ACT THEATRE | $140,829 |
| MILWAUKEE CHAMBER THEATRE | $118,390 |
| BEL CANTO CHORUS | $60,147 |
| LATINO ARTS | $16,000 |
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
35 repeat relationships — 27 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k 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
MILWAUKEE REPERTORY THEATER INC8× · 2017–2024 · $14M · revenue +91%
MILWAUKEE BALLET COMPANY INC8× · 2017–2024 · $7.6M · revenue +5%
FLORENTINE OPERA COMPANY INC8× · 2017–2024 · $5.4M · revenue +38% · 29% of their budget
Funded once
- MPMILWAUKEE PUBLIC THEATRE INCone grant, 2017 · $26k
- TRTHE RAUCH FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $24k · revenue +450%
- LGLake Geneva Symphony Orchstra Incgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $7k · revenue +86%
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.
Orchestral program for communit
Inspire artists, audiences, and our greater southern wisconsin community to celabrate the art of theatre.
Strengthen communities by providing high-quality and innovative artistic experiences that entertain, inspire, and unite diverse audiences.
Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society of Wisconsin's primary purpose is to bring together world-class performing artists to create cutting-edge musical events that present chamber music as serious fun to audiences.
Providing community affordable access to rare musicals
Provide community concerts and youth music education.
One of milwaukee's oldest arts organizations...
Musical and other cultural performances and music education for youth
The mission of madison opera is to produce operas of the highest artistic standards.
Performance of classical music
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is First Stage Milwaukee and the most unlike its peers is Xalaat Africa Drum & Dance for Life. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 33 years old; the field is 22. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
43 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. 43 of the 45 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 MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE REPERTORY THEATER INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE BALLET COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds FIRST STAGE MILWAUKEE ↗
- Who funds FLORENTINE OPERA COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds SKYLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE CORP ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds DANCEWORKS INC ↗
- Who funds RENAISSANCE THEATERWORKS INC ↗
- Who funds NEXT ACT THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE CHAMBER THEATRE LTD ↗
- Who funds PRESENT MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds BEL CANTO CHORUS OF MILWAUKEE INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE CHILDREN'S CHOIR INC ↗
- Who funds LATINO ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds RACINE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds IN TANDEM THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds FESTIVAL CITY SYMPHONY INC ↗
- Who funds ABOVE THE CLOUDS INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE OPERA THEATRE ↗
- Who funds WISCONSIN CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds KIDS FROM WISCONSIN LTD ↗
- Who funds BLACK ARTS MKE INC ↗
- Who funds SHARON LYNNE WILSON CENTER FOR THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds WILD SPACE INC ↗
- Who funds MORAINE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE JAZZ INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds Optimist Theatre ↗
- Who funds The Wisconsin Philharmonic Inc ↗
- Who funds MARCUS CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE PUBLIC THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds THE RAUCH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PINK UMBRELLA THEATER COMPANY ↗
- Who funds Signature Dance Co ↗
- Who funds FRANKLY MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds Lake Geneva Symphony Orchstra Inc ↗
- Who funds TEN CHIMNEYS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds XALAAT AFRICA DRUM & DANCE FOR LIFE ↗
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: Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · Bert L and Patricia S Steigleder Charitable · Green Bay Packers Foundation · Richard and Ethel Herzfeld Foundation Inc · Dorothy Inbusch Foundation Inc · Gardner Foundation · Youth Foundation Inc · Baird Foundation Inc · Maihaugen Foundation Inc Agency Xxxxxx2262 · Milwaukee Jewish Federation Inc · Peck Foundation Milwaukee Ltd
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 United Performing Arts Fund Inc 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.