Missouri · Nonprofit
CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS
CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS (Missouri) receives grants from 78 organizations whose IRS filings report $13,305,287 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($2,597,880). 41 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $6.3M
- Funders on record
- 78
- Grants received
- $13M
- Net assets
- $5.9M
What Center of Creative Arts does
Mission
Enriching lives and building community through the arts.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Education - coca inspires art experiences for all ages and skill levels, from enthusiastic amateurs to emerging professionals. We offer classes in art & design, circus, culinary arts, dance, early childhood, theatre, and voice. Whether patrons are looking for classes to take in-person at our university city campus, virtually from your own home, or a combination of both, we have something for everyone. During the fiscal year, total enrollment was 3,517, which includes 95 pre-professional multidisciplinary students.
$2,815,600 spentof which $202,503 as grants$1,141,845 earned by the program50% of program spendingCamps - coca summer arts camps ignite creativity! Campers have the opportunity to learn and experience new things, build their skills, and - most importantly - have fun! Coca offers some of the most creative summer arts camps for kids and teens, serving 5,374 camp enrollments.
$1,028,586 spentof which $85,658 as grants$1,052,983 earned by the program18% of program spendingSee schedule ococa presents - cocapresents, the signature performance season, brings thought-provoking programming for multigenerational audiences to the st. Louis community with a selection of traditional audience favorites and innovative new work from local, national, and student artists. Coca's innovative performances transform the way we think about the world around us. Coca's millstone gallery presents timely, relevant exhibitions from emerging and established artists. Exhibitions welcome visitors to examine the artistic process and engage in meaningful dialogue. With access as a core value, coca presents provides opportunities for families to experience engaging art forms and strives to make them accessible to the widest possible demographic through discounted tickets, school time performances for school students. The millstone gallery is free and open to the public. During the fiscal year 8,218 people attended these performances.
$1,365,463 spentof which $113,713 as grants$243,491 earned by the program24% of program spendingCocaedu - cocaedu is a nationally recognized model of excellence for arts education. Cocaedu engages students, inspires teachers, and demonstrates the power of the arts to bridge barriers through programs in classrooms across the st. Louis region. Since 1992, the program has provided arts programming to thousands of students and dedicated educators. Cocaedu provides collaborative arts integration residencies that partner teaching artists from local arts and community organizations with teachers from the st. Louis public schools, university city public schools, ferguson-florissant school district, and many more.during the fiscal year, 30 schools and community organizations participated in this program. This program included 134 collaborative residencies and classes and served approximately 2,676 participants. In addition, this program provided professional development for 75 educators.
$279,021 spentof which $23,236 as grants$145,775 earned by the program5% of program spendingCocabiz - cocabiz, the business training division of coca, provides immersive arts-based training, programming, and consulting for professionals. The cocabiz mission is to build a more creative, engaged, and effective workforce by delivering innovative workshops and events that employ authentic arts teaching and achieve business results. Cocabiz programs bring individuals together in an intelligent and engaging atmosphere, inspiring business professionals to explore new approaches and emerging ideas across industries. During the fiscal year approximately 681 participants were served.
$120,945 spentof which $10,072 as grants$52,730 earned by the program2% of program spending
The 5 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $5,609,615.
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 2018 to 2019, from $35M to $26M (−26%).
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 2% · 2018 2% · 2019 7% · 2020 0% · 2021 26% · 2022 11% · 2023 3% · 2024 18% · 2025 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
46% of CENTER OF CREATIVE 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. 6 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
Indigo Sams
President & CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 17 funders to 20 funders, grant income fell $931k → $800k.
14 of 78 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 31% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $3.5M from 9 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Staenberg Family Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS raised.
From the IRS filings of CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 78 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
CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 20% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left
45% 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 CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 23% · 2018 32% · 2019 18% · 2020 21% · 2021 39% · 2022 32% · 2023 22% — 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.
How long its funders stay
39% of CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 53% 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 CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS's grant income comes from Missouri funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $4.2M arriving through sponsors registered in 12 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
CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS's revenue fell 42% between 2017 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $300k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$250k
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$50k
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 CENTER OF CREATIVE 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 Missouri
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
65% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
78%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Part of a family of 2 related entities
- Coca Leveraged Lender Inc · exempt
- Coca Qalicb Inc · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CENTER OF CREATIVE 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 CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS?
- CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS (Missouri) receives grants from 78 organizations whose IRS filings report $13,305,287 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($2,597,880). 41 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS have?
- IRS filings report 78 organizations giving $13,305,287 in grants to CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS, 41 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS?
- DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC is the largest funder on record, with $2,597,880 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CENTER OF CREATIVE ARTS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Missouri. 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 78 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