Washington · Nonprofit
Friends of Third Place Commons
Friends of Third Place Commons (Washington) receives grants from 2 organizations whose IRS filings report $11,559 to it, the largest being The Ron and Eva-Maria Sher Foundation ($6,000). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $249k
- Funders on record
- 2
- Grants received
- $12k
- Net assets
- $267k
What Friends of Third Place Commons does
Mission
To enrich and foster real community in real space by facilitating free public events in the Commons; sponsoring the local farmers market; and partnering with civic, arts, and social service entities to help maximize their impact.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
FARMERS MARKET: The Lake Forest Park Farmers Market is a weekly Sunday market from Mothers Day through mid-October annually. The market, which is food and plant focused, features dozens of vendors of produce, meat, fish,eggs,flowers and locally produced specialty items, and welcomes thousands of weekly shoppers.
$106,863 spent$84,053 earned by the program58% of program spendingWEEKEND MUSIC: Friends of Third Place Commons hosts free live music onstage with an open dance floor every Friday and Saturday night. Local and regional acts bring jazz, swing, big band, blues, funk, soul, country, zydeco and more to local audiences from throughout Seattle and north King County, while a large dance floor gives dancers plenty of space to rock and swing to the nights offerings.
$75,844 spent$44,446 earned by the program41% of program spendingCOMMUNITY EVENTS: Third Place Commons hosts hundreds of free community events each year including performances by local school bands/orchestras, music and dance studios, and community groups. Events also include community fairs (e.g., green fairs, safety and preparedness, etc.), crafts fairs, informational and educational forums (e.g., candidate forums, social issues, etc.), and other unique offerings. Events held both in-person and virtually via Zoom. Weekly and monthly programs included foreign language conversation groups, book and movie clubs, art-ins, and more. All events at the Commons are free of charge.
$2,608 spent$8,480 earned by the program1% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $185,315.
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 2018 to 2019, from $204k to $228k (+12%).
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 12% · 2018 11% · 2019 12% · 2020 18% · 2021 31% · 2022 30% · 2023 13% · 2024 15%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
43% of Friends of Third Place Commons’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (18% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 8 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.
Board chair
Aaron Stadler
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
Grant support over time, funder by funder — shade shows the grant size each year.
1 of 2 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 48% 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 Friends of Third Place Commons’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
Friends of Third Place Commons leans on a few funders — its largest provides 52% of grant income and the top three 100%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
48% 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 Friends of Third Place Commons.
“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
Friends of Third Place Commons draws 100% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, across 1 state in all.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $6k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state 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
Friends of Third Place Commons holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 15,520 recreation & sports nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 15,520 recreation & sports nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like Friends of Third Place Commons
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 Washington
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
78% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
90%
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 Friends of Third Place Commons: 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 Friends of Third Place Commons?
- Friends of Third Place Commons (Washington) receives grants from 2 organizations whose IRS filings report $11,559 to it, the largest being The Ron and Eva-Maria Sher Foundation ($6,000). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Friends of Third Place Commons have?
- IRS filings report 2 organizations giving $11,559 in grants to Friends of Third Place Commons, 1 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Friends of Third Place Commons?
- The Ron and Eva-Maria Sher Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $6,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Friends of Third Place Commons find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Washington. 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 Friends of Third Place Commons →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 2 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