Illinois · Nonprofit
LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS
LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS (Illinois) receives grants from 14 organizations whose IRS filings report $383,319 to it, the largest being NEW ENGLAND FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS INCORPORATED ($82,700). 9 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $170k
- Funders on record
- 14
- Grants received
- $383k
- Net assets
- $605k
What Lucky Plush Productions does
Mission
Lucky Plush Productions is an ensemble dance-theater company based in chicago, led by founder and artistic director julia rhoads. The company is committed to provoking and supporting an immediacy of presence - a palpable live-ness - shared by performers in real time with audiences, a unique hybrid of high-level dance and theater, lucky plush's work is recognized for its layered choreography, nuanced dialogue, surprising humor, and socially relevant content.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Lucky Plush Productions annually creates and performs original dance-theater work. The company has been in 80+ venues worldwide including the kennedy center (dc), joyce theater (nyc), ica/boston (ma), wellesley center (auckland, nz), and teatro las carolinas (havana, cuba). Lucky plush is the recipient of a macarthur award for creative and effective institutions, and creation and touring awards from the nea, national dance project, national theater project, and national performance network. Off the stage, lucky plush regularly engages students and community members with the company's ensemble-based approaches to dance and theater.
$92,054 spent$35,438 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $92,054.
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 2018 to 2019, from $539k to $0 (−100%).
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: 2018 2% · 2020 8% · 2021 28% · 2022 35% · 2023 39% · 2024 36% · 2025 23%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
56% of LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as 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 7 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
Jennifer Edgcomb
Chairman
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 5 funders, grant income rose $60k → $64k.
4 of 14 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 27% 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 LUCKY PLUSH 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
LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 22% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
59% 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 LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 83% · 2018 42% · 2019 76% · 2020 23% · 2021 28% · 2022 40% · 2023 62% — 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
45% of LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 64% 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
LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS draws 64% of its grant income from funders outside Illinois, across 5 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $103k arriving through sponsors registered in 4 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
LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS's funding base is broadening — from 2 funders to 5 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 11,634 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Government funding LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $45k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$45k
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 LUCKY PLUSH 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 Illinois
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
53% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
87%
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 LUCKY PLUSH 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 LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS?
- LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS (Illinois) receives grants from 14 organizations whose IRS filings report $383,319 to it, the largest being NEW ENGLAND FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS INCORPORATED ($82,700). 9 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS have?
- IRS filings report 14 organizations giving $383,319 in grants to LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS, 9 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS?
- NEW ENGLAND FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS INCORPORATED is the largest funder on record, with $82,700 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Illinois. 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 Lucky Plush Productions →
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 14 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