BIG EARS FESTIVAL

What Big Ears Festival does

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 2021 to 2022, from $625k to $1.9M (+207%).

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: 2019 2% · 2020 11% · 2021 33% · 2022 34% · 2023 12% · 2024 13% · 2025 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.

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

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 19 funders, grant income rose $145k → $1.2M.

7 of 27 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 7% 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 BIG EARS FESTIVAL’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

BIG EARS FESTIVAL leans on a few funders — its largest provides 38% of grant income and the top three 69%; half comes from just 2 funders.

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 93% · 2018 58% · 2019 46% · 2020 74% · 2021 66% · 2022 58% · 2023 26% — 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

43% of BIG EARS FESTIVAL's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 78% 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

90% of BIG EARS FESTIVAL's grant income comes from Tennessee funders.

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $325k arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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.