Tennessee · Nonprofit
CREATIVETS
CREATIVETS (Tennessee) receives grants from 77 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,179,644 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($853,725). 30 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
- $4.3M
- Funders on record
- 77
- Grants received
- $5.2M
- Net assets
- $3.0M
What Creativets does
Mission
To empower wounded veterans to heal through the arts and music, using tools they can use the rest of their lives to combat stress, depression, and other side effects of war. These programs also enable veterans to see their own capacity for success in an area outside the battlefield.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Veteran songwriting programs - program offerings, both for songwriting and visual arts programs.during the 2024-2025 fiscal year we hosted more veteran songwriting programs in nashville, tn than any year before. We also increased our participation with each of our other partners/veteran service organizations to bring the healing power of music to more veterans than ever before. Along with increases in other programs, we continued and increased the number of in-house songwriting and guitar lessons. Through this program, veterans can simply walk in to our facility, or log on virtually, where they are provided with lifesaving songwriting and music lessons without the need to wait for our next scheduled program.we also hosted community programs hosted at our veteran center in nashville where local veterans could attend guitar, songwriting, or even vocal coaching for single day events. This allows us to make an impact on those veterans right here in our own local area. These have been incredibly successful.
$1,279,642 spent64% of program spendingIntroduction to art for veterans - these programs provided our high quality, multi-discipline visual art programming. Creativets continued to partner with the glassell school of art at the museum of fine arts - houston for our recurring winter art program. This 2-week program was modeled after our summer programs but offered in houston, tx where the winter weather was not so extreme. This class focused on sculpture and ceramics, but it also included elements of mixed media, woodworking, metal working, photography, and other mediums. The program was a huge success and gave us the opportunity to showcase our healing process with an entire new community of veterans and civilians. As with songwriting, we also introduced community art programs in nashville, tn that ranged from collage and painting, to photography and leatherworking. These single day programs allow those local veterans with a busy schedule to have the opportunity to learn about art, meet other veterans and create something healing.all of this was made possible with the support of our generous donors and supporters. Due to this support, we were able to afford these additional programs to build on to our foundation for…
$716,998 spent36% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,996,640.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2020, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2020, 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 $1.5M to $4.6M (+215%).
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.
96% of CREATIVETS’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 6 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
Richard Casper
Executive director
Board chair
Luke Pell
Board chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 22 funders, grant income rose $37k → $951k.
25 of 77 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.
From the IRS filings of CREATIVETS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 77 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
CREATIVETS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 16% of grant income, and it takes 6 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 6 funders to its left
81% 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 CREATIVETS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 54% · 2018 40% · 2019 25% · 2020 35% · 2021 20% · 2022 21% · 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
26% of CREATIVETS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 39% 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 CREATIVETS'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 $2.3M that is directly attributable, 51% of it comes from funders outside Tennessee, across 20 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.9M arriving through sponsors registered in 20 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
CREATIVETS runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 3,430 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,430 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding CREATIVETS receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $50k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$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 CREATIVETS
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
88% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
98%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 3 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CREATIVETS: 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 CREATIVETS?
- CREATIVETS (Tennessee) receives grants from 77 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,179,644 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($853,725). 30 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 CREATIVETS have?
- IRS filings report 77 organizations giving $5,179,644 in grants to CREATIVETS, 30 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CREATIVETS?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $853,725 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CREATIVETS 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 Creativets →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2020–2025), and the filings of 77 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