Tennessee · Nonprofit
Crosstown Arts
Crosstown Arts (Tennessee) receives grants from 7 organizations whose IRS filings report $19,261,839 to it, the largest being CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MEMPHIS ($14,265,764). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 98% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $5.1M
- Funders on record
- 7
- Grants received
- $19M
- Net assets
- $35M
What Crosstown Arts does
Mission
Crosstown Arts is a contemporary arts organization dedicated to further cultivating the creative community in memphis. Managing a variety of exhibition, performance, and production spaces, Crosstown Arts supports artists, musicians, and audiences with a wide range of multidisciplinary and collaborative projects. Crosstown Arts founded and managed the renovation of crosstown concourse, a one-million-square-foot mixed-use development in the former sears building. Over 40,000 square feet of space in crosstown concourse is dedicated to the non-profit arts organization's arts and music programming.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Crosstown Arts creates a wide range of public programming in and around crosstown concourse to help revitalize memphis' crosstown neighborhood. This public programming includes ongoing free, large-scale public events throughout the year in crosstown concourse's outdoor public plaza and indoor public atrium spaces.
$1,896,978 spent$935,850 earned by the program45% of program spendingCrosstown Arts manages a variety of exhibition spaces that include over 5,000 square feet of gallery space in multiple locations. The exhibition program hosts a diverse range of memphis-based and national/international visual artists, and includes a deliberate mix of individual and group shows curated and organized by individuals and/or other arts organizations, often with a focus on interconnecting artists and content from varied backgrounds. Exhibitions range from highly curated shows by professional artists who work in complex and compelling subject matter to open-call shows that welcome a broad scope of participants working at any level of expertise. All visual art exhibitions are free and open to the public with 100% of all art sales going directly to the exhibiting artist(s). Crosstown Arts manages a variety of performance spaces for live music that include a small, intimate venue for audiences of up to 125 people, as well as a black-box theater for audiences of up to 400 people. Crosstown Arts' music programming focuses on live performances by memphis-based musicians, as well as nationally and internationally renowned touring musicians seeking to perform in these…
$932,559 spent$263,875 earned by the program22% of program spendingCrosstown Arts manages a variety of multidisciplinary and collaborative production spaces that are the core elements of the residency program, which hosts over 60 memphis-based and visiting artists and musicians, working in any medium, each year. The residency program offers accepted residents the gift of uninterrupted time and space to work on their creative projects by providing studio work spaces, separate individual and family residential housing via on-site apartments, and meals, at no cost to residents. These artists, musicians, composers, photographers, filmmakers, writers, and dancers are able to spend dedicated time on their work, in whatever capacity they choose, while participating in the residency program. No exhibitions or performances are required of the residents, but they are invited to share their work through artist talks and a public open studio night during each residency session.participants in the residency program have access to production resources and facilities that include a full-scale woodshop, a cnc machine, a laser cutter, large-format digital printers, high-end scanners, digital labs with all major music/sound/design/video editing software, screen…
$166,974 spent$76,859 earned by the program4% of program spendingDepreciation, rent, musician services, public engagement
$1,198,794 spent$28,155 earned by the program29% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $4,195,305.
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 2023 to 2024, from $49M to $100M (+105%).
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: 2020 3% · 2021 28% · 2022 12%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
45% of Crosstown Arts’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. 6 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
Stacy Wright
Executive Director
Board chair
Richard Lou
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2023 and FY2024 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 4 funders, grant income fell $2.8M → $2.7M.
3 of 7 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 98% 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 Crosstown Arts’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
Crosstown Arts leans on a few funders — its largest provides 74% of grant income and the top three 99%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
98% 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 Crosstown Arts.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 100% · 2019 56% · 2020 85% · 2021 100% · 2022 73% · 2023 80% — 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.
Where its funders are
98% of Crosstown Arts'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 $448k that is directly attributable, 93% of it comes from Tennessee funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $19M 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
Crosstown Arts runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding Crosstown Arts receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $20k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$20k
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 Crosstown Arts
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
87% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
69%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 4 related entities
- River City Rental Housing LLC · disregarded
- Sustaining the Arts LLC · disregarded
- Lost in the Cosimos LLC · disregarded
- Crosstown Memhis Investment Fund LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Crosstown Arts: 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 Crosstown Arts?
- Crosstown Arts (Tennessee) receives grants from 7 organizations whose IRS filings report $19,261,839 to it, the largest being CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MEMPHIS ($14,265,764). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 98% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Crosstown Arts have?
- IRS filings report 7 organizations giving $19,261,839 in grants to Crosstown Arts, 6 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Crosstown Arts?
- CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MEMPHIS is the largest funder on record, with $14,265,764 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Crosstown Arts 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 Crosstown Arts →
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 7 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