Michigan · Nonprofit
EBONY ROAD PLAYERS
EBONY ROAD PLAYERS (Michigan) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $208,359 to it, the largest being STEELCASE FOUNDATION ($125,000). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $217k
- Funders on record
- 8
- Grants received
- $208k
- Net assets
- $84k
What Ebony Road Players does
Mission
Ebony Road Players is a grand rapids theatre company whose mission is to inspire, educate and engage the cultures of our community with high-quality theatre productions focused on the black experience.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Ebony Road Players is a grand rapids theatre company whose mission is to inspire, educate and engage the cultures of our community with high-quality theatre productions focused on the black experience. There were various plays performed during 2025 for this purpose. Polkadots: the cool kids musical cadillac crew
$129,563 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $129,563.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2018, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2018, 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 2022 to 2023, from $59k to $83k (+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.
98% of EBONY ROAD PLAYERS’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. 3 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 5 funders, grant income rose $150 → $79k.
3 of 8 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 24% 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 EBONY ROAD PLAYERS’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
EBONY ROAD PLAYERS leans on a few funders — its largest provides 60% of grant income and the top three 91%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
26% 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 EBONY ROAD PLAYERS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 56% · 2019 92% · 2020 33% · 2021 63% · 2022 100% · 2023 63% — 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
60% of EBONY ROAD PLAYERS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 75% 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
100% of EBONY ROAD PLAYERS's grant income comes from Michigan funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $50k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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
EBONY ROAD PLAYERS runs a healthier operating margin 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
Organizations like EBONY ROAD PLAYERS
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 Michigan
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
63% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
84%
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 EBONY ROAD PLAYERS: 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 EBONY ROAD PLAYERS?
- EBONY ROAD PLAYERS (Michigan) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $208,359 to it, the largest being STEELCASE FOUNDATION ($125,000). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does EBONY ROAD PLAYERS have?
- IRS filings report 8 organizations giving $208,359 in grants to EBONY ROAD PLAYERS, 6 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of EBONY ROAD PLAYERS?
- STEELCASE FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $125,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like EBONY ROAD PLAYERS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Michigan. 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 Ebony Road Players →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2018–2025), and the filings of 8 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