Tennessee · Nonprofit
Nashville Symphony Association
Nashville Symphony Association (Tennessee) receives grants from 166 organizations whose IRS filings report $37,207,047 to it, the largest being THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE INC ($21,412,382). 110 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 68% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $28M
- Funders on record
- 166
- Grants received
- $37M
- Net assets
- $58M
What Nashville Symphony Association does
Mission
The Nashville Symphony inspires and engages a diverse and growing community with extraordinary live orchestral music experiences. As Middle Tennessee continues to grow and transform, the Nashville Symphony will be a financially robust, leading orchestra fully supported and embraced by the community it serves and recognized by its peers for its innovation and excellence. Key to achieving this vision, the Nashville Symphony will: - Entertain and educate audiences with varied opportunities to engage with orchestral music. - Be recognized as a leading arts organization defined by performing an innovative and excellent portfolio distinguished by a commitment to American music, including underrepresented voices. - Strengthen diversified revenue streams in order to routinely deliver a balanced operating budget and meet goals for endowment contributions. - Build a diverse, welcoming, and effective organization that is a great place to work and is reflective of the Middle Tennessee community.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Artistic Programming : The Nashville Symphony is where music comes alive for Middle Tennessee and beyond. Founded in 1946, the orchestra performs at the world-class Schermerhorn Symphony Center, presenting a dynamic range of programming that spans classical masterworks, groundbreaking new commissions, jazz, pop, film with live orchestra, and family concerts. A national leader in championing contemporary American orchestral music, the Symphony has premiered and recorded works by many of today's most celebrated composers, earning 14 GRAMMY Awards and 27 nominations. The Nashville Symphony performs nearly 200 concerts annually, including free and low-cost education and community programs that collectively reach nearly 550,000 people of all ages across Middle Tennessee each year. Through broadcasts, recordings, and streaming, the Symphony extends its impact to an additional 13 million listeners worldwide. As a nonprofit organization, the Nashville Symphony is dedicated to enriching its community, inspiring the next generation of music lovers, and demonstrating the transformative power of live orchestral music to unite and inspire. The 2024/25 season marked the final season of Music…
$23,195,736 spent$12,747,035 earned by the program92% of program spendingEducation & Community Engagement Programs: During the 2024-2025 season, the Nashville Symphony strengthened its commitment to accessibility and community connection through 278 free and low-cost education and community engagement programs, reaching nearly 36,000 students and adults. We expanded our presence beyond Schermerhorn Symphony Center through programs such as Music in My Neighborhood, Lunar New Year, and MLK: A Celebration in Song, bringing orchestral music directly into communities across the region. Music in My Neighborhood focused on the Antioch community, offering free ensemble performances, workshops, and family concerts in local schools and community centers. The third year of this community residency fostered cultural connection, neighborhood pride, and direct engagement with Symphony musicians. In partnership with Metro Nashville Public Schools, Symphony musicians reached thousands of students through in-school performances, classroom visits, and interactive concerts at Schermerhorn Symphony Center. These programs provide students with direct access to live orchestral music and meaningful artistic mentorship. We also hosted the We Are Nashville Festival 2025, where…
$2,017,021 spentof which $40,055 as grants$26,996 earned by the program8% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $25,212,757.
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 2020 to 2021, from $93M to $100M (+8%).
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 1% · 2018 1% · 2019 1% · 2020 0% · 2021 9% · 2022 34% · 2023 6% · 2024 2% · 2025 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
49% of Nashville Symphony Association’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (58% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 7 of the last 9 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.
Chief executive
Alan D Valentine
President & CEO
Board chair
Mary Cavarra
Board Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 47 funders to 78 funders, grant income rose $1.8M → $6.0M.
24 of 166 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 68% 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 Nashville Symphony Association’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 166 funders by total. 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
Nashville Symphony Association leans on a few funders — its largest provides 58% of grant income and the top three 69%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
72% 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 Nashville Symphony Association.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 40% · 2018 77% · 2019 69% · 2020 74% · 2021 40% · 2022 61% · 2023 40% — 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.
How long its funders stay
53% of Nashville Symphony Association's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 66% 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
68% of Nashville Symphony Association's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $12M that is directly attributable, 77% of it comes from Tennessee funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $25M arriving through sponsors registered in 17 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
Nashville Symphony Association's revenue grew 29% between 2017 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 570 arts & culture nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding Nashville Symphony Association receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $470k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$470k
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 Nashville Symphony Association
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 Tennessee
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
83% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
89%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Nashville Symphony Endowment Trust · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Nashville Symphony Association: 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 Nashville Symphony Association?
- Nashville Symphony Association (Tennessee) receives grants from 166 organizations whose IRS filings report $37,207,047 to it, the largest being THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE INC ($21,412,382). 110 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 68% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Nashville Symphony Association have?
- IRS filings report 166 organizations giving $37,207,047 in grants to Nashville Symphony Association, 110 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Nashville Symphony Association?
- THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE INC is the largest funder on record, with $21,412,382 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Nashville Symphony Association find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Tennessee. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 166 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing