Tennessee · Nonprofit
CREATIVE LIFE INC
CREATIVE LIFE INC (Tennessee) receives grants from 4 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,973,187 to it, the largest being CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MEMPHIS ($1,948,062). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 99% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $606k
- Funders on record
- 4
- Grants received
- $2.0M
- Net assets
- $473k
What Creative Life Inc does
Mission
To educate 500+ children ages 5-18
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
$50k grant from Valero help build a room for prek to 3 yrs old to learn how to read.$60k to construct an outdoor classroom.Thanksgiving Giveaway boxes of canned goods, meats, and cutlery given to all students.Christmas giveaway of bikes, coats, hats, and food boxes given to all students.
$600,808 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $600,808.
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 2024 to 2025, from $626k to $482k (−23%).
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 17% · 2018 43% · 2019 15% · 2020 12% · 2021 20% · 2022 14% · 2023 31% · 2024 41% · 2025 48%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
100% of CREATIVE LIFE INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (83% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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
Carolyn Bibbs
President CEO
Board chair
Willie Cummings
Board chairman
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 3 funders to 1 funder, grant income fell $425k → $273k.
1 of 4 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 99% 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 CREATIVE LIFE INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 3 of 4 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
CREATIVE LIFE INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 99% 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 CREATIVE LIFE INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 94% · 2019 100% · 2020 100% · 2021 100% · 2022 100% · 2023 100% — growing more concentrated.
“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
99% of CREATIVE LIFE INC'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. Of the $25k that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from Tennessee funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.9M arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state 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
CREATIVE LIFE INC's revenue grew 15% between 2017 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,482 youth development nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like CREATIVE LIFE 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 Tennessee
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
81% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
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 CREATIVE LIFE 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 CREATIVE LIFE INC?
- CREATIVE LIFE INC (Tennessee) receives grants from 4 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,973,187 to it, the largest being CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MEMPHIS ($1,948,062). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 99% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does CREATIVE LIFE INC have?
- IRS filings report 4 organizations giving $1,973,187 in grants to CREATIVE LIFE INC, 1 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CREATIVE LIFE INC?
- CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MEMPHIS is the largest funder on record, with $1,948,062 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CREATIVE LIFE INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Tennessee. 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 Creative Life →
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 4 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