Maine · Nonprofit
OPERA HOUSE ARTS
OPERA HOUSE ARTS (Maine) receives grants from 34 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,653,208 to it, the largest being Maine Community Foundation Inc ($1,163,852). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 54% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.2M
- Funders on record
- 34
- Grants received
- $2.7M
- Net assets
- $2.5M
What Opera House Arts does
Mission
Opera House Arts was established as a 501(c)3 in 1999 to restore the historic 1912 stonington opera house to its central role in the cultural life of the deer isle community. Our mission is to foster and promote excellence in all the ways we perform our lives:incite art, create community. Today, the stonington opera house is a historic center of culture and entertainment, a performance space, and a civic gathering place. Our work is rooted in the belief that access to and participation in the arts transforms lives. We offer a year-round schedule of theatrical performances, film, concerts - including a jazz festival - trivia and openmic nights, and events that honor downeast culture and give our community a voice.we operate under an actors equity small professional theatre contract and produce new and original professional, multidisciplinary performances that are recognized locally and nationally. Our audiences are the residents of deer isle, the blue hill peninsula, andhancock county w
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Opera House Arts served deer isle, blue hill peninsula, and hancock county communities, regional visitors, and tourists by offering professional theatrical performances, concerts, intergenerational entertainment, and civic gatherings. We featured regional and nationally recognized artists, performers, and speakers in a welcoming and inviting environment while remaining a good steward of a 113 year old theater on the national register of historical places.
$667,450 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $667,450.
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 2023 to 2024, from $2.0M to $2.6M (+27%).
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: 2020 13% · 2021 43% · 2024 1% · 2025 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
79% of OPERA HOUSE ARTS’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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.
Board chair
David Stephens
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 8 funders to 18 funders, grant income rose $183k → $472k.
9 of 34 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 54% 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 OPERA HOUSE ARTS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 34 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
OPERA HOUSE ARTS leans on a few funders — its largest provides 44% of grant income and the top three 72%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
55% 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 OPERA HOUSE ARTS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 68% · 2018 73% · 2019 35% · 2020 38% · 2021 32% · 2022 35% · 2023 53% — 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
74% of OPERA HOUSE ARTS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 62% 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
54% of OPERA HOUSE ARTS'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 $1.2M that is directly attributable, 92% of it comes from funders outside Maine, across 14 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.4M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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
OPERA HOUSE ARTS runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like OPERA HOUSE ARTS
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 Maine
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
63% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
91%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for OPERA HOUSE ARTS: 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 OPERA HOUSE ARTS?
- OPERA HOUSE ARTS (Maine) receives grants from 34 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,653,208 to it, the largest being Maine Community Foundation Inc ($1,163,852). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 54% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does OPERA HOUSE ARTS have?
- IRS filings report 34 organizations giving $2,653,208 in grants to OPERA HOUSE ARTS, 21 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of OPERA HOUSE ARTS?
- Maine Community Foundation Inc is the largest funder on record, with $1,163,852 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like OPERA HOUSE ARTS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Maine. 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 Opera House Arts →
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 34 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