New York · Nonprofit
CREATIVE MINDS NYC INC
CREATIVE MINDS NYC INC (New York) receives grants from 25 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,111,428 to it, the largest being AMERICAN ONLINE GIVING FOUNDATION INC ($272,996). 12 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 64% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $999k
- Funders on record
- 25
- Grants received
- $1.1M
- Net assets
- $600k
What Creative Minds NYC Inc does
Mission
Creative minds nyc, inc., doing business as story pirates changemakers, celebrates the words, ideas, and stories of young people by engaging in creative collaborations between kids and world-class artists, including top comedians, authors, and musicians.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Creative Minds NYC Inc. Creates opportunities for children to write stories and gain literacy skills. The organization provides resources to elementary schools, both in-person and digitally, to celebrate kids' own self expression and to offer positive reinforcement to young people as they gain the tools to become creative thinkers and problem solvers.
$902,750 spent$47,500 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $902,750.
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 $485k to $689k (+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: 2017 25% · 2018 8% · 2019 8% · 2020 12% · 2021 10% · 2022 4% · 2023 16% · 2024 17% · 2025 10%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
95% of CREATIVE MINDS NYC INC’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (64% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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.
Board chair
Charles Russo
Chairman & president
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 10 funders, grant income rose $6k → $219k.
9 of 25 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 64% 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 MINDS NYC INC’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
CREATIVE MINDS NYC INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 25% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
79% 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 MINDS NYC INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 83% · 2019 53% · 2020 28% · 2021 30% · 2022 37% · 2023 23% — 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
40% of CREATIVE MINDS NYC INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 48% 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
64% of CREATIVE MINDS NYC 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 $396k that is directly attributable, 51% of it comes from funders outside New York, across 7 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $716k arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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
CREATIVE MINDS NYC INC is better cushioned than half of the 11,634 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 11,634 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Government funding CREATIVE MINDS NYC INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $70k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$70k
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 CREATIVE MINDS NYC 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 New York
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
85% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
61%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 2 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CREATIVE MINDS NYC 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 MINDS NYC INC?
- CREATIVE MINDS NYC INC (New York) receives grants from 25 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,111,428 to it, the largest being AMERICAN ONLINE GIVING FOUNDATION INC ($272,996). 12 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 64% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does CREATIVE MINDS NYC INC have?
- IRS filings report 25 organizations giving $1,111,428 in grants to CREATIVE MINDS NYC INC, 12 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CREATIVE MINDS NYC INC?
- AMERICAN ONLINE GIVING FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $272,996 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CREATIVE MINDS NYC INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in New York. 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 Minds NYC →
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 25 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