California · Nonprofit
Golden Thread Productions
Golden Thread Productions (California) receives grants from 29 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,833,491 to it, the largest being THE WILLIAM & FLORA HEWLETT FOUNDATION ($865,000). 15 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $375k
- Funders on record
- 29
- Grants received
- $1.8M
- Net assets
- $373k
What Golden Thread Productions does
Mission
Golden Thread Productions mission is to produce passionate and provocative playsfrom or about the Middle East including its global diaspora - that celebrate themultiplicity of its perspectives and identities while serving as a developmentalcatalyst and vibrant artistic home to artists at various stages of their career.Golden Thread brings the Middle East to the American stage, creating treasuredcultural experiences for audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
REORIENT FESTIVAL AND FORUM (ReOrient) The ReOrient Festival of Short Plays was inaugurated in 1999 to present alternative perspectives of the Middle East and to showcase the multiplicity of stories, voices and styles from the region and has since becomes Golden Threads most recognized and celebrated program. This ambitious festival, now presented biennially, turns San Francisco into a Mecca for innovative, spirited, and thought-provoking theatre from and about the Middle East. It has served as a springboard for the careers of top Middle Eastern-American playwrights such as Yussef El Guindi, Torange Yeghiazarian, and Betty Shamieh, and has introduced Bay Area audiences to significant and rarely-produced dramatic works from the Middle East by authors such as Sadegh Hedayat, Fatma Gallaire, and Tawfiq AlHakim. Alongside Middle Eastern voices, ReOrient also features the work of nonMiddle Eastern playwrights, and has included premieres by distinguished American playwrights such as Naomi Wallace, Eric Ehn and Israel Horovitz. Since 2009, in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the festival, Golden Thread has organized the ReOrient Forum, a weekend-long convening in San Francisco…
$245,940 spent$97,252 earned by the program55% of program spendingFULL-LENGTH PLAYS AND NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT (Mainstage and New Threads) In addition to the production of full length plays, Golden Thread ensures the discovery and development of new playwrights and plays through three distinct programs. Middle East America (MEA): a National New Plays Initiative, created in partnership with the Lark Play Development Center (New York City) and Silk Road Rising (Chicago) is designed to help create a pipeline of high quality plays by Middle Eastern American playwrights. MEA winners receive a $10,000 commission and two years of development with possibility of productions in Chicago and San Francisco. Award winners include Adriana Sevahn Nichols (2008), Yussef El Guindi (2011), and Mona Mansour (2014). New Threads: an annual staged reading and workshop series that engages its audience in the process of playmaking and allows writers of Middle Eastern and non-Middle Eastern descent an authentic and supportive space to develop work about the Middle East. Many of the New Threads plays continue on to receive main stage productions. Kimia/Alchemy: programs that facilitate multiyear collaborations that explore rare themes and/or bring together unlikely…
$77,176 spent$14,470 earned by the program17% of program spendingYOUTH OUTREACH (Fairytale Players) A portion of Golden Threads programming engages and educates youth and family audiences about the Middle East. The company addresses the parallel needs of Middle Eastern youth and families for self-affirming performing arts programming and the broad communitys need for a deeper understanding of the Middle East in its rich diversity. Golden Thread Fairytale Players create and tour original productions based on Middle Eastern fables and childrens stories. Inspired by popular performance traditions in the Middle East, the performances employ epic storytelling, physical theatre and circus arts techniques and tour schools, libraries, and festivals around the Bay Area. Current repertoire includes THE GIRL WHO LOST HER SMILE, THE PRINCESS AND THE MIRROR, NASRUDINS MAGNIFICENT JOURNEY TO SAMARKAND, 21 DAYS THAT CHANGE THE YEAR, and LEILAS QUEST FOR FLIGHT.
$76,398 spent$11,810 earned by the program17% of program spendingOTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 4: COMMUNITY OUTREACH EVENTS (Womens Day, General Artistic, Fiscal Sponsorship) Golden Thread celebrates International Womens Day each year with What Do the Women Say?, a curated evening highlighting the works of Middle Eastern women artists. We also provide fiscal sponsorship and occasional artistic support for small projects to Middle Eastern artists.
$49,326 spent$8,953 earned by the program11% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2023 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $448,840.
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 2019 to 2020, from $92k to $607k (+559%).
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 20% · 2018 26% · 2019 40% · 2020 12% · 2021 27% · 2022 52% · 2023 19% · 2024 14%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
81% of Golden Thread Productions’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. 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 7 funders to 12 funders, grant income rose $122k → $237k.
7 of 29 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 12% 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 Golden Thread Productions’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
Golden Thread Productions leans on a few funders — its largest provides 47% of grant income and the top three 68%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 78% · 2018 64% · 2019 60% · 2020 63% · 2021 56% · 2022 40% · 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
32% of Golden Thread Productions's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 52% 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
73% of Golden Thread Productions's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $215k arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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
Golden Thread Productions's funding base is broadening — from 7 funders to 12 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 17,936 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Government funding Golden Thread Productions receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $175k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$175k
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 Golden Thread Productions
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 California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
65% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
58%
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 Golden Thread Productions: 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 Golden Thread Productions?
- Golden Thread Productions (California) receives grants from 29 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,833,491 to it, the largest being THE WILLIAM & FLORA HEWLETT FOUNDATION ($865,000). 15 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Golden Thread Productions have?
- IRS filings report 29 organizations giving $1,833,491 in grants to Golden Thread Productions, 15 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Golden Thread Productions?
- THE WILLIAM & FLORA HEWLETT FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $865,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Golden Thread Productions find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. 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 Golden Thread Productions →
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 29 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