Rhode Island · Nonprofit
AS 220
AS 220 (Rhode Island) receives grants from 46 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,305,114 to it, the largest being THE RHODE ISLAND COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($1,216,039). 34 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.5M
- Funders on record
- 46
- Grants received
- $4.3M
- Net assets
- $9.9M
What As 220 does
Mission
We the people of Rhode Island associate ourselves for the purpose of providing a local forum and home for the arts through the maintenance of residential and work studios galleries performance and educational spaces. Exhibitions and performances in the forum will be unjuried uncensored and open to the general public. Our facilities and services are made available to all artists who need a place to exhibit perform or create their original artwork especially those who cannot obtain space to exhibit or perform from traditional sources because of financial or other limitations. AS220 envisions a just world where all people can realize their full creative potential.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
AS220 YOUTH works with young people aged 14-21 through 5 crews: fashion media arts music dance and visuals. AS220 Youth formally partners with several downtown high schools that otherwise do not have arts programming as well as the Rhode Island Training School the states juvenile detention center where we have been working for nearly 30 years. This exposure to the arts taps into often-overlooked creative potential offering a powerful learning experience for young people. In FY2025 AS220 Youth ran 144 ongoing classes and served 347 young people including 94 Youth apprentices. AS220 Youth also premiered a full studio show again: FUTUREWORLDS 9 in May 2025.
$837,031 spent$691,593 earned by the program33% of program spendingLIVE ARTS & GALLERIES: We provide an unjuried uncensored all ages forum for the arts; every artist residing in Rhode Island has the opportunity to exhibit or perform their original work in our venues. AS220 presents an extraordinary range of activities and our unjuried and uncensored booking policy ensures that a limitless variety appears on our stages and on our walls. Live Arts venues include the Main Stage the Black Box and Psychic Readings and these venues host live music theater dance performance art poetry slams film screenings late night programming fashion shows workshops festivals and more. In fiscal year 2025 Live Arts presented over 400 performances events and workshops with over 4,200 artists and public attendance of over 19,000. The AS220 Galleries include the Main Gallery the Project Space the Reading Room the Resident Gallery and the Aborn Gallery and feature visual artists working in various mediums on a monthly rotating schedule. In fiscal year 2025 the galleries curated exhibitions featuring 95 visual artists including 37 first-time exhibitors with attendance of over 5,100. In the Aborn Gallery we also continued to intentionally curate timely exhibitions. This…
$573,765 spent$290,503 earned by the program22% of program spendingLIVE WORK: AS220 owns and manages three mixed-use buildings in downtown Providence Rhode Island totaling approximately 100,000 sq. ft. We offer affordable housing and studio space for over 60 artists on the upper floors of each of our three downtown buildings including 47 live work studios and several work-only studios. Each of our buildings includes a mix of affordable residences artist studios and public AS220 programming. We also provide offices space for 4 other non-profit organizations and have 6 commercial tenants all of which are local one-of-a-kind businesses. Permanent affordable artist housing has been key to transforming downtown providence into a vibrant place to live and work over the past 30 years. Our tenants are a core foundation of the AS220 community and have access to AS220 resources. They also help support the community through volunteer work.
$412,242 spent$120,755 earned by the program16% of program spendingAS220 COMMUNITY STUDIOS and AS220 DANCE are AS220s formal adult education programs. Community Studios is a cross-disciplinary arts education space and community studio comprising a Media Arts Lab Fabrication Lab and Woodshop Printshop Visuals & Fashion Studio and Community Darkroom. In addition to providing members access to professional tools and equipment for artistic production Community Studios has offered educational workshops from beginner to advanced levels since 2011. By providing affordable access to studio space tools of the trade and varied training opportunities Community Studios has fostered a dynamic environment for learning and making as well as small business development and production. In FY2025 219 regular members participated at Community Studios and 1,220 students attended 95 workshops and events. AS220 Dance hosts weekly classes in many dance and movement forms as well as rehearsal space for dancers. In FY2025 16 regular dance instructors held 520 class sessions for 2,489 students.
$197,374 spent$80,675 earned by the program8% of program spendingOTHER PROGRAMS: Other programs includes organization-wide programming such as AS220s participation in the Citys PVD Fest as well as supporting and incubating small and fledgling arts groups and other aligned startup organizations as they grow into their own nonprofits through fiscal and administrative support. In FY2025 it also included the second year of our Creative Leadership Fellows project. The 16 Fellows 11 of whom completed the program were supported by programs across AS220 in a yearlong program through which they learned about event curation being a teaching artist arts nonprofit management civic engagement and creative leadership.
$542,634 spent$307,489 earned by the program21% of program spending
The 5 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,563,046.
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 $18M to $15M (−15%).
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 32% · 2018 2% · 2019 41% · 2020 5% · 2021 32% · 2022 28% · 2023 5% · 2024 2% · 2025 5%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
31% of AS 220’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 7 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
Janella Watson
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 7 funders to 18 funders, grant income rose $309k → $673k.
9 of 46 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 40% 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 AS 220’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 46 funders by total. 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
AS 220 has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 28% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
44% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund AS 220.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 55% · 2018 46% · 2019 33% · 2020 43% · 2021 26% · 2022 28% · 2023 32% — diversifying over time.
“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
62% of AS 220's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 74% 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
AS 220 draws 78% of its grant income from funders outside Rhode Island, across 14 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.7M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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
AS 220's funding base is broadening — from 7 funders to 18 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,430 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding AS 220 receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.5M on record.
- Department of Labor$1.4M
- National Endowment for the Arts$155k
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 AS 220
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 Rhode Island
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
77% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Part of a family of 4 related entities
- Mercantile Block LLC · partnership
- AS220 GP Inc · corp_trust
- Mercantile Block Manager Inc · corp_trust
- AS220 Food & Drink LLC · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for AS 220: 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 AS 220?
- AS 220 (Rhode Island) receives grants from 46 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,305,114 to it, the largest being THE RHODE ISLAND COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($1,216,039). 34 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does AS 220 have?
- IRS filings report 46 organizations giving $4,305,114 in grants to AS 220, 34 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of AS 220?
- THE RHODE ISLAND COMMUNITY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,216,039 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like AS 220 find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Rhode Island. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds As 220 →
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 46 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing