Arizona · Nonprofit
CHILDSPLAY INC
CHILDSPLAY INC (Arizona) receives grants from 41 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,208,724 to it, the largest being Virginia G Piper Charitable Trust ($1,711,085). 25 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.9M
- Funders on record
- 41
- Grants received
- $5.2M
- Net assets
- $656k
What Childsplay Inc does
Mission
To ignite imagination, wonder and joy by creating strikingly original theatre and learning experiences that inspire young minds to explore and soar.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Theatre productions founded in 1977, childsplay is a nationally and internationally respected professional theatre company that performs for children and families in arizona. At childsplay we believe that young people deserve to experience challenging, thought-provoking theatre of the highest artistic quality. Our respect for the intelligence and creativity of children drives us to produce new and innovative works by the finest theatrical artists, as we employ an ensemble of professional adult actors, directors, and designers to create exceptional theatre productions. Our new plays program is dedicated to creating original plays that speak to the contemporary experience of being a child. Childsplay reaches young audiences through four major performance programs public performances, field trips, local and national touring. In fy25, childsplay held 32 public performances for 5,969 attendees, 52 fieldtrip performances for 20,820 attendees, 77 touring performances for 29,850 attendees, and 76 national touring performances for 38,041 attendees.
$2,184,619 spent$806,999 earned by the program70% of program spendingEducational programs childsplay is a leader in educational arts programming, having established a reputation among educators for trustworthy, quality content that provides cross-curricular value. Education has always been key to childsplays mission and programming. Within the past decade, specific education programs connected to academic curriculum have become an essential element of what the organization offers the community. The academy provides theatre training at our campus, and the education outreach department offers theatre experiences in the classroom. Professional development programs include drama frames, which works with elementary teachers to integrate drama into the curriculum, and eyeplay, which works with early childhood educators to pair drama and literacy. In fy25, childsplay served 1,387 children through its academy and 4,615 children through its education outreach programs.
$929,452 spent$832,737 earned by the program30% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $3,114,071.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2019, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2019, 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 $2.3M to $1.3M (−42%).
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 4% · 2020 15% · 2021 35% · 2022 28% · 2023 13% · 2024 12% · 2025 4%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
43% of CHILDSPLAY INC’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. 4 of the last 7 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
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 8 funders to 23 funders, grant income rose $88k → $997k.
6 of 41 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 12% 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 CHILDSPLAY INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 41 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
CHILDSPLAY INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 33% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
26% 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 CHILDSPLAY INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 36% · 2018 47% · 2019 38% · 2020 26% · 2021 37% · 2022 67% · 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
74% of CHILDSPLAY INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 61% 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
80% of CHILDSPLAY INC's grant income comes from Arizona funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $632k arriving through sponsors registered in 5 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
CHILDSPLAY INC's funding base is broadening — from 8 funders to 23 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,430 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding CHILDSPLAY INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $170k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$170k
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 CHILDSPLAY INC
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 Arizona
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
83% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
77%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CHILDSPLAY INC: 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 CHILDSPLAY INC?
- CHILDSPLAY INC (Arizona) receives grants from 41 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,208,724 to it, the largest being Virginia G Piper Charitable Trust ($1,711,085). 25 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does CHILDSPLAY INC have?
- IRS filings report 41 organizations giving $5,208,724 in grants to CHILDSPLAY INC, 25 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CHILDSPLAY INC?
- Virginia G Piper Charitable Trust is the largest funder on record, with $1,711,085 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CHILDSPLAY INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Arizona. 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 Childsplay →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2019–2025), and the filings of 41 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