Oregon · Nonprofit
Elbow Room
Elbow Room (Oregon) receives grants from 5 organizations whose IRS filings report $91,280 to it, the largest being EUGENE V AND CLARE E THAW CHARITABLE TRUST ($60,000). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $145k
- Funders on record
- 5
- Grants received
- $91k
- Net assets
- $32k
What Elbow Room does
Mission
Elbow Room is a community art studio and gallery focused on providing workspace, material support, mentorship, and meaningful exhibition and collaboration opportunities for artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We center the individual interests, needs, and goals of the artists we work with, and maintain an inclusive space for individuals and groups to develop an artistic practice and a shared creative community.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Programs
Studio Program - Our studio program provides studio space and material support for artists experiencing developmental disabilities. Through our studio program we were able to provide roughly 30 disabled artists with access to our community studio/gallery space in Southeast Portland. Elbow Room artists have access to the studio during open hours 5 days a week, where they have space to work on their creative projects and have access to an extensive collection of high quality art materials and art making tools as well as a small library of art books, computers and digital technology, tools for making music, and other resources. Additionally, our studio space houses an archive where artists can keep and maintain their portfolios of finished and accomplished work. Membership is free for Elbow Room artists, however a small membership fee is sometimes negotiated with the provider organizations facilitating services for them. The number here reflects half of our studio rent, insurance costs and other costs related to keeping the space open, organized, and usable, art supply and equipment costs, and a third of personnel costs (an approximation of the personnel cost to administrate and…
$58,191 spent41% of program spendingGallery Program - Our gallery program is dedicated to creating exhibition, sales, and career opportunities for participating artists in Elbow Room's studio program. Elbow Room supports the careers of roughly 30 disabled artists. Our physical space hosts a small white walled gallery where we host innovative exhibitions and events. This year we were able to host two public exhibitions in our gallery as well as a massive holiday sale and open house in our studio. This year we were able to pay staff for the first time to host open gallery hours outside of our opening/closing events. We also sought out, found, and facilitated opportunities for artists in the broader arts community both locally and beyond Portland. Work by Elbow Room artists was placed in numerous outside exhibitions, including exhibitions in Philadelphia and New Jersey, and some newer artists to the program saw their work exhibited for the first time. Elbow Room staff tabled with artwork at various local events and for the second year in a row we were able to represent our artists in the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art's Time-Based Art festival. We were able to generate thousands of dollars in sales for 30…
$68,603 spent49% of program spendingArtist Mentorship and Collaborative Opportunities - This year we continued our monthly visiting artist program, in which an artist from the community visits our space and hosts a workshop for Elbow Room artists. We were able to host 10 workshops this year. We also found opportunities for our artists to collaborate with our community. For example, a number of our artists were also able to engage in a paid collaboration with a local school district to design a signs and a communication board for a playground. The number here reflects the stipends paid for visiting artists, an estimate of the personnel time dedicated to administrating and facilitating these workshops and opportunities.
$13,575 spent10% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $140,369.
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 at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2021 to 2022, from $4k to $40k (+833%).
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.
81% of Elbow Room’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (64% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 6 reported years ran a deficit.
Who funds it, year by year
2019 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 2 funders, grant income rose $7k → $30k.
2 of 5 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 14% 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 Elbow Room’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
Elbow Room leans on a few funders — its largest provides 66% 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
Largest funder’s share by year: 2019 100% · 2020 100% · 2021 100% · 2022 100% · 2023 100% — broadly stable.
“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
Elbow Room draws 92% of its grant income from funders outside Oregon, across 3 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $13k 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
Elbow Room has grown faster than three-quarters 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 Elbow Room
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 Oregon
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Public support
47%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Elbow Room: 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 Elbow Room?
- Elbow Room (Oregon) receives grants from 5 organizations whose IRS filings report $91,280 to it, the largest being EUGENE V AND CLARE E THAW CHARITABLE TRUST ($60,000). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Elbow Room have?
- IRS filings report 5 organizations giving $91,280 in grants to Elbow Room, 2 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Elbow Room?
- EUGENE V AND CLARE E THAW CHARITABLE TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $60,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Elbow Room find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Oregon. 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 Elbow Room →
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 5 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