Colorado · Nonprofit
CREATIVE WEST
CREATIVE WEST (Colorado) receives grants from 12 organizations whose IRS filings report $14,340,148 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($8,000,000). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 56% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $23M
- Funders on record
- 12
- Grants received
- $14M
- Net assets
- $21M
What Creative West does
Mission
Creative West is a nonprofit arts service organization dedicated to the creative advancement and preservation of the arts. Based in denver, colorado, Creative West fulfills its mission to strengthen the financial organizational and policy infrastructure of the arts by providing innovative and services to artist and arts organizations in the west and nationwide.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
With support from the national endowment for the arts, Creative West maintains a tour west and regional engagement program, which funds arts touring. "tourwest," supports the touring of performing artists across the west. The program is designed to serve small communities, and is heavily oriented towards supporting performing arts presented in small rural communities. With grants up to $5,000, these grants are modest in nature but have made a significant difference in smaller communities where contributions from government and business have diminished greatly in recent years. Additionally, private funders have supported additional granting programs managed by Creative West focused on supporting artists and arts leaders from underrepresented groups. Both the tourwest program and private grant awards fund over 200 grants annually and services all corners of Creative West's 13-state region and three pacific jurisdictions.
$3,557,083 spentof which $1,436,048 as grants$2,470,072 earned by the program44% of program spendingCreative West provides a wide variety of services that are designed to support the development of the arts in the region. Major programs include: 1) convenings, networks, and planning processes that bring together leading practitioners in the arts field to discuss policy issues that impact artists and communities and to develop strategies for development of the arts, 2) professional development seminars for state arts agency leaders and investments in state arts agency innovation that are designed to help them become more effective and service oriented public sector agencies.
$1,786,078 spent22% of program spendingAdditionally, Creative West has online software as a service tools to connect artists to opportunities via; 3) the development of the public art archive, a searchable online database of completed public artworks throughout the u.s. And abroad, in which artists and managers of public art programs can contribute their work for free public viewing, and 4) arts service-based technology projects such as zapplication and call for entry (cafe tm) which support the non-profit arts community and artists in the use of technology to facilitate and advance their work.
$2,829,269 spent35% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $8,172,430.
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 $9.7M to $24M (+147%).
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 36% · 2018 39% · 2019 40% · 2020 52% · 2021 20% · 2022 51% · 2023 43% · 2024 40% · 2025 9%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
85% of CREATIVE WEST’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (58% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 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
Christian Gaines
Executive director
Board chair
Bassem Bejjani
Board chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2020 and FY2021 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2018 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 3 funders, grant income rose $13k → $1.2M.
2 of 12 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 56% 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: $310 from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Rasmuson Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money CREATIVE WEST raised.
From the IRS filings of CREATIVE WEST’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 WEST leans on a few funders — its largest provides 56% of grant income and the top three 93%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
56% 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 WEST.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2018 57% · 2020 100% · 2021 98% · 2022 94% · 2023 80% — 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.
How long its funders stay
33% of CREATIVE WEST's funders are still giving 2 years after their first grant; 33% 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
56% of CREATIVE WEST'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 $6.3M that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from funders outside Colorado, across 6 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $8.0M 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.
Against its field
CREATIVE WEST runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 550 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 550 arts & culture nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding CREATIVE WEST receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $22.9M on record — $22.8M federal, $24k state.
- National Endowment for the Arts$22.8M
- DUES/MEMBERSHIPS$24k
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 WEST
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 Colorado
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
87% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
62%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Zapp Software LLC · partnership
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CREATIVE WEST: 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 WEST?
- CREATIVE WEST (Colorado) receives grants from 12 organizations whose IRS filings report $14,340,148 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($8,000,000). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 56% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does CREATIVE WEST have?
- IRS filings report 12 organizations giving $14,340,148 in grants to CREATIVE WEST, 4 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CREATIVE WEST?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $8,000,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CREATIVE WEST find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Colorado. 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 12 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