California · Nonprofit
Alliance for California Traditional Arts
Alliance for California Traditional Arts (California) receives grants from 19 organizations whose IRS filings report $11,904,148 to it, the largest being THE ANDREW W MELLON FOUNDATION ($5,150,000). 13 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.5M
- Funders on record
- 19
- Grants received
- $12M
- Net assets
- $5.3M
What Alliance for California Traditional Arts does
Mission
ACTA's mission is to ensure that California's future holds California's past. ACTA promotes and supports ways for cultural traditions to thrive now and into the future by providing advocacy, resources, and connections for folk and traditional artists.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Various programs supporting the cultivation and growth of traditional arts and culture through stewardship in tending and nurturing California's unique cultural landscape; services to artists; and connecting people, resources and information.
$3,275,020 spent67% of program spendingThe California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation CARES program leverages ACTA's long and deep experience of our existing programming inside correctional facilities to combine specific artists, art forms,and healing interventions in a single 16-week program consisting of four interconnected modules led by traditional artists. The art forms and artists that ACTA has been bringing inside prisons since 2014 come from many of the same neighborhoods as their students. They understand that the threat of incarceration is not far removed from their realities, their families, and their friends. At the same time, ACTAs teaching artists are masters of their forms. They are invested in practices that have transformed them and recognize the possibilities of transformation for those currently impacted by the system of incarceration.
$665,448 spent$665,448 earned by the program14% of program spendingCultivate a better California for all by working directly with artists and culture bearers and their communities in the folk and traditional arts field by providing direct grants, technical assistance, convenings, and professional developmentopportunities.
$658,097 spent$658,095 earned by the program13% of program spendingThe Arts in Corrections Program provides traditional arts residencies in California state prisons. ACTA coordinated various residencies serving program participants in state correctional institutions. Residencies consisted of two 13-17 week courses in traditional art forms, such as Native American bead work, Chicano murals, illustration, son jarocho, Afro-Colombian percussion, Mexican folk guitar, djembe, collective songwriting and storytelling. ACTA worked closely with the artists and correctional staff to coordinate the residencies and document the impact through site visits, photographs, videos, and coordination of an outside evaluation project.
$312,355 spent$312,355 earned by the program6% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $4,910,920.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $3.6M to $9.3M (+157%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 11% · 2018 12% · 2019 6% · 2020 15% · 2021 9% · 2022 19%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
54% of Alliance for California Traditional Arts’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Board chair
Chike Nwoffiah
Board President
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 5 funders to 7 funders, grant income fell $1.2M → $516k.
3 of 19 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 0% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of Alliance for California Traditional Arts’s funders (the co-funder graph). Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
Alliance for California Traditional Arts leans on a few funders — its largest provides 43% of grant income and the top three 79%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 37% · 2018 75% · 2019 40% · 2020 46% · 2021 50% · 2022 78% · 2023 47% — growing more concentrated.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
70% of Alliance for California Traditional Arts's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 68% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
52% of Alliance for California Traditional Arts's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $16k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
Alliance for California Traditional Arts holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding Alliance for California Traditional Arts receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.0M on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$800k
- National Endowment for the Humanities$200k
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like Alliance for California Traditional Arts
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
87% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
85%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Alliance for California Traditional Arts: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Alliance for California Traditional Arts?
- Alliance for California Traditional Arts (California) receives grants from 19 organizations whose IRS filings report $11,904,148 to it, the largest being THE ANDREW W MELLON FOUNDATION ($5,150,000). 13 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Alliance for California Traditional Arts have?
- IRS filings report 19 organizations giving $11,904,148 in grants to Alliance for California Traditional Arts, 13 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Alliance for California Traditional Arts?
- THE ANDREW W MELLON FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $5,150,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Alliance for California Traditional Arts find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 19 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing