California · Nonprofit
Bay Area Creative BAC
Bay Area Creative BAC (California) receives grants from 10 organizations whose IRS filings report $187,688 to it, the largest being Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation ($55,000). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.2M
- Funders on record
- 10
- Grants received
- $188k
- Net assets
- $180k
What Bay Area Creative BAC does
Mission
Bay area creative supports positive change through creative and expressive arts that uphold cultures, provide therapeutic benefits, and to enhance communication skills primarily in underrepresented communities. We are driven by our resolute mission to actively disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline, champion marginalized cultures, and carve out a sanctuary for unbridled self-expression.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Bay area creatives journey from July 1 2024 to June 30, 2025 was a beacon of artistic growth and community enrichment through our main program SPARC. SPARC provided over 6,883 students across 130 sites the opportunity for growth through creative and artistic expression. This is both through SPARC workshops and community events held in schools throughout the bay area. 56% of those served through SPARC programming come from low income homes. 43% are English language learners with 79% identifying as BIPOC, LatinC or AAPI students. This program delivered more than 4,251 hours of workshops provided by 41 working artist to 5 bay area counties.
$885,565 spent$968,992 earned by the program89% of program spendingRich Oak became a program of bay area creative this year and continued to produce the Berkeley slam, the longest running poetry slam on the west coast. Rich oak brings together local known and new poets (including poets in the sparc program) with well-known poets from around the world for a weekly slam in the bay area. Audience and performers form a diverse reflection of the bay area community including bipoc, aapi, Latinx, lgbtq+, and all other types of identifying performers to a single stage. Serving an audience of combined total of more than 2,790 people in 78 shows between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025. 55 featured performers headlined and over 378 poets and artists performed at rich oak events.
$79,601 spent$4,731 earned by the program8% of program spendingRevisions is the bay area creatives therapeutic arts program that works with organizations and providers to create lasting difference in participants lives through creative therapy such as writing and empathy education. Working with organizations such as the social changers bac provided 115 participants access to therapeutic arts in 95 workshops focused on accessing trauma and healing in creative methods such as writing.
$29,850 spent3% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $995,016.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2024, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2024, 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 2024 to 2025, from $132k to $180k (+36%).
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.
20% of Bay Area Creative BAC’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (48% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 2 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2019 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 4 funders, grant income rose $8k → $26k.
4 of 10 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 19% 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 Bay Area Creative BAC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 9 of 10 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
Bay Area Creative BAC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 29% of grant income and the top three 68%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
38% 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 Bay Area Creative BAC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2019 100% · 2020 58% · 2021 100% · 2022 75% · 2023 58% — 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
100% of Bay Area Creative BAC's funders are still giving 1 year after their first grant; 60% 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
100% of Bay Area Creative BAC's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $37k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 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
Bay Area Creative BAC has grown faster than three-quarters of the 9,398 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,398 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Bay Area Creative BAC
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
86% 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
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Bay Area Creative BAC: 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 Bay Area Creative BAC?
- Bay Area Creative BAC (California) receives grants from 10 organizations whose IRS filings report $187,688 to it, the largest being Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation ($55,000). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Bay Area Creative BAC have?
- IRS filings report 10 organizations giving $187,688 in grants to Bay Area Creative BAC, 6 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Bay Area Creative BAC?
- Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $55,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Bay Area Creative BAC 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.
Play a game about who funds Bay Area Creative BAC →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2024–2025), and the filings of 10 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