How much does Vermont Council on the Arts Inc give?

Vermont Council on the Arts Inc reported 64 itemized grants totaling $892,545, out of $1,461,137 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 35 and 136 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Vermont Council on the Arts Inc fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (76%), Education (4%), Food & Nutrition (3%).

Who are Vermont Council on the Arts Inc's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Catamount Film & Arts Company ($444k), Burlington City Arts Foundation Inc ($404k), The Weston Playhouse Theater ($334k).

Does Vermont Council on the Arts Inc fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 43% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as Vermont Council on the Arts Inc?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Vermont Community Foundation, Vermont Humanities Council, The Windham Foundation Inc.

Where is Vermont Council on the Arts Inc based?

Vermont Council on the Arts Inc is based in VT.

Vermont Council on the Arts Inc

Vermont Council on the Arts Inc at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

Vermont Council on the Arts Inc

The council's mission is to advance and preserve the arts at the center of vermont communities.

$1.5M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$44k

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$12MEducation$705kFood & Nutrition$550kEnvironment$548kCommunity Improvement$435kPublic Benefit$322kHuman Services$266kPhilanthropy$230kOther$0

02FY2025 · 64 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 64 grants below total $892,545, the rows itemized in this filing. The $1,461,137 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $568,592 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 $10k5 grants · $34k
$10k–50k59 grants · $858k

$11,000

Median grant

States reached

$2.0M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
VERMONT FOLKLIFE CENTER	$43,500
CATAMOUNT FILM AND ARTS CENTER	$28,549
MAQUAM BAY OF MISSISQUOI	$28,500
BARRE OPERA HOUSE	$28,500
SHELBURNE CRAFT SCHOOL	$26,098
OKEMO VALLEY TV	$24,000
OLDCASTLE PRODUCTIONS INC	$24,000
BIRDS OF VERMONT MUSEUM INC	$23,750
STANDREW'S CHURCH	$21,404
RUTLAND AREA ARTS ASSOCIATION	$20,800
BENNINGTON MUSEUM	$20,000
DORSET PLAYERS	$17,779
BRATTLEBORO MUSEUM AND ART CENTER	$17,000
FLYNN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS	$16,000
CLEMMONS FAMILY FARM	$16,000

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:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $365k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-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.

71%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$11M · 124 repeat orgs$4.7M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +26% since the first grant, against +10% for those funded once.

124 repeat relationships: 52 still active in FY2025, 72 since wound down; 12 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

124

180

Total granted

$11M

$4.6M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+26%

+10%

Still filing today

87%

39%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 79% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $186k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureEducationHuman ServicesCommunity ImprovementRecreation & SportsPhilanthropyOther

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

CF
Catamount Film & Arts Company
9× · 2017–2025 · $444k · revenue +75%
BC
BURLINGTON CITY ARTS FOUNDATION INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $404k · revenue +218%
TH
TOWN HALL THEATER INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $324k · revenue +425%

Funded once

DP
DANFOTH PEWTERERS LTD
one grant, 2023 · $200k
FO
FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC
one grant, 2023 · $200k · revenue -28%
OL
OB2 LLC
one grant, 2023 · $200k

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.

Wind River Valley Artist Guild

—

Moonbox Productions Inc

MoonBox Productions is dedicated to supporting local arts and local artists, and to connect communities to the nonprofit organizations that serve them.

Arts & Culture

The Vermont Opera Project Co

The mission of the vermont opera project is to create site specific productions of new or lesser known operas in various locations around vermont.

Arts & Culture

Middlebury Acting Company

Our mission is to produce plays locally, provide skilled actors, directors and designers with a chance to work, and to engage, challenge and educate our audience.

Arts & Culture

Theater in the Woods Vermont Co

Theater in the woods vermont co. educates children and adults in theater skills, creative community building, and connection to the natural world through summer camps, workshops, and productions.

Arts & Culture

Kishka Gallery and Library Ltd

Kishka Gallery and Library is an arts space in White River Junction, VT that supports local arts and artists, hosts regular contemporary art exhibitions, takes traveling exhibitions to national art fairs, and provides a free lending…

Arts & Culture

North Country Center for the Arts Inc

A premier center for the arts in the white mountain area of new hampshire

Arts & Culture

The Saco River Theatre

The Saco River Theatres mission is art, culture and the community.

Arts & Culture

Northampton Center for the Arts Inc

To provide affordable space for artists, performers and educators. to offer arts progamming in northampton massachusetts.

Arts & Culture

Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts

To promote education in the arts.

Arts & Culture

Cultural Arts Center of the Lakes Region

To locate a high quality arts venue in the Lakes Region.

—

Granary Art Center

To support contemporary arts through exhibitions, education and cultural programming and serve as an anchor for artistic activity and community. Granary Arts supports and exhibits regional and international artists, provides educational…

Arts & Culture

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Flynn Center for the Performing Arts Ltd; the most unlike its peers is Highland Center for the Arts. 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

193 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 193 of the 316 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)

185/193

Grantees still filing

119/193

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Arts & Culture$9,267,723Other$3,727,064Education$745,408Human Services$396,500Community Improvement$382,700Philanthropy$277,038Youth Development$180,348

Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.

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.

The Vermont Community FoundationVT157.2× affinity143 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Vermont Community Foundation · Vermont Humanities Council · The Windham Foundation Inc · Ben & Jerry's Foundation Inc · Preservation Trust of Vermont Inc · George W Mergens Foundation · Vermont Afterschool Inc · National Life Group Charitable Foundation Inc · Turrell Fund · Vermont Childrens Trust Foundation · Thomas Thompson Trust · James E Robison 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.

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

Friends of the Vergennes Opera House Inc: 100% of income from government
Vermont Folklife Center: 90% of income from government
Capstone Community Action Inc: 84% of income from government
Central Vermont Council On Aging Inc: 74% of income from government
Vermont Historical Society: 51% of income from government
Maquam Bay of Missisquoi Inc: 43% of income from government
Vergennes Partnership Inc: 37% of income from government
Pride Center of Vermont Inc: 37% of income from government
Leahy Center for Lake Champlain Inc: 33% of income from government
St Albans Historical Society Inc: 32% of income from government
Catamount Film & Arts Company: 27% of income from government
Ruth Stone House: 26% of income from government
Retreat Farm Ltd: 25% of income from government
Out in the Open Inc: 25% of income from government
The Vermont River Conservancy Inc: 21% of income from government
Vermont Granite Museum of Barre: 19% of income from government
Wilmington Works Inc: 15% of income from government
Governor's Institutes of Vermont: 15% of income from government
Chittenden Community Television: 14% of income from government
Fairfield Community Center Associn: 14% of income from government
Outright Vermont: 13% of income from government
Paran Recreations Inc: 12% of income from government
Town Hall Theater Inc: 11% of income from government
Vermont Symphony Orchestra Association Inc: 11% of income from government
Windsor Public Library: 9% of income from government
Clemmons Family Farm Inc: 9% of income from government
Downtown Brattleboro Alliance Inc: 9% of income from government
Shelburne Museum Inc: 9% of income from government
New England Foundation for the Arts Incorporated: 8% of income from government
Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium: 7% of income from government
Burlington City Arts Foundation Inc: 6% of income from government
Northern Stage Company: 5% of income from government
Revitalizing Waterbury Inc: 5% of income from government
North Branch Nature Center Inc: 4% of income from government
Montshire Museum of Science Inc: 4% of income from government
Vermont Stage Company: 4% of income from government
Winooski Valley Park District: 3% of income from government
Chandler Center for the Arts Inc: 2% of income from government
Lake Champlain Maritime Museum at Basin Harbor Inc: 2% of income from government
Thetford Academy: 2% of income from government
St Johnsbury Athenaeum Inc: 2% of income from government
Vermont Studio Center Inc: 2% of income from government
Kingdom County Productions Inc: 1% of income from government
New England Center for Circus Arts Inc: 1% of income from government
Bradford Public Library: 1% of income from government
Brattleboro Museum & Art Centerinc: 1% of income from government
The Weston Playhouse Theater: 0% of income from government
Center for Arts & Learning Inc: 0% of income from government
Flynn Center for the Performing Arts Ltd: 0% of income from government
Inclusive Arts Vermont Inc: 0% of income from government
Bixby Memorial Free Library: 0% of income from government
The Nature Museum at Grafton: 0% of income from government
Theatre Adventure Inc: 0% of income from government
River Arts of Morrisville Inc: 0% of income from government
Vermont Youth Orchestra Association Inc: 0% of income from government
Bennington College Corporation: 0% of income from government
Vermont College of Fine Arts Inc: 0% of income from government

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

62get no government money at all

26report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

5rely on government for over half their income

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 Vermont Council on the Arts’ 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