Massachusetts · Nonprofit
BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST
BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST (Massachusetts) receives grants from 2 organizations whose IRS filings report $50,045 to it, the largest being JEWISH COMMUNITY FEDERATION OF SAN FRANCISCO THE PENINSULA MARIN & SONOMA ($50,000). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 100% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.0M
- Funders on record
- 2
- Grants received
- $50k
- Net assets
- $747k
What Brookline Cable Community Trust does
Mission
Big is a community media arts center that provides community cable and online news and information channels for brookline, ma. Big facilitates diverse community dialogue, incubates and funds hyperlocal storytelling, arts, journalism and technology programs, and serves over 500 youth and adults annually through innovative classes and partnerships. Big offers extensive trainings and high-quality filmmaking equipment in traditional media, virtual reality (vr), and in 360-video. Big provides low-cost professional media services to non-profit organizations, education partners, businesses, and to local government.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
The trust created local televised shows to help promote their mission.
$975,259 spent$1,027,522 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $975,259.
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.
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 $1.5M to $1.3M (−17%).
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: 2020 31% · 2023 30% · 2024 15% · 2025 44%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 8 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.
Chief executive
Jessica Smyser
Executive director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2022 and FY2023, and between the FY2023 and FY2024 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2021 → 2023: the base held at 1 funder, grant income fell $19 → $16.
2 of 2 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 100% 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 BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST’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
BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST leans on a few funders — its largest provides 100% of grant income and the top three 100%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
100% 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 BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2021 100% · 2022 100% · 2023 100% — broadly stable.
“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.
Where its funders are
100% of BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Too little is directly attributable to place on a map.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $50k 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.
Organizations like BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST
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 Massachusetts
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
98%
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 BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST: 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 BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST?
- BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST (Massachusetts) receives grants from 2 organizations whose IRS filings report $50,045 to it, the largest being JEWISH COMMUNITY FEDERATION OF SAN FRANCISCO THE PENINSULA MARIN & SONOMA ($50,000). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 100% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST have?
- IRS filings report 2 organizations giving $50,045 in grants to BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST, 1 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST?
- JEWISH COMMUNITY FEDERATION OF SAN FRANCISCO THE PENINSULA MARIN & SONOMA is the largest funder on record, with $50,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like BROOKLINE CABLE COMMUNITY TRUST find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Massachusetts. 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 Brookline Cable →
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 2 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