Illinois · Nonprofit
Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago
Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago (Illinois) receives grants from 30 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,894,791 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($536,100). 18 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 71% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.0M
- Funders on record
- 30
- Grants received
- $1.9M
- Net assets
- $395k
What Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago does
Mission
Porchlight, Chicagos home for music theatre, illuminates the past, present and future of this American art form through live performance, youth education and outreach programs that positively impact and connect us to the community.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Productions: Porchlight Music Theatre is the award-winning center for music theatre in Chicago, bringing the magic of musicals to our theatre home at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts in the citys Gold Coast and to neighborhoods across the city. Porchlight has built a national reputation for boldly reimagining classic musicals, supporting new works and young performers, and showcasing Chicagos most notable music theatre artists, all through the intimate, diverse and powerful theatrical lens of the Chicago Style. The companys many accolades include a total of 190 Joseph Jefferson Award nominations resulting in 53 Jeff Awards (including five consecutive Best Production awards for the years 2013-2017), 43 Black Theatre Alliance nominations and 15 awards, and 28 After Dark Awards. Porchlights 30-year production history includes more than 76 mainstage works with 16 Chicago premieres and five world premieres.
$985,698 spent$489,568 earned by the program82% of program spendingEducation and Outreach: Porchlights education and outreach program provides focused training and experiences for Chicago youth to create, practice, perform and appreciate the unique American art form of music theatre. Through its fee-based classes and summer camps, Porchlight welcomes children from 4-17 years of age, many of whom received full or partial scholarships. Porchlight also provides customized in-school, after-school and community organization programs that include focused skills training, supporting the production of full-length musicals across the city, as well as our signature Sing Out! literacy and theater residency that leads students to create their own musical adaptation of a book. In the 2024-2025 season, Porchlight partnered with 7 schools, reaching hundreds of local kids. Porchlight is a strategic source vendor and a qualified and preferred arts partner with Chicago Public Schools.
$220,143 spent$181,082 earned by the program18% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,205,841.
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 $478k to $1.1M (+120%).
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: 2019 1% · 2020 3% · 2021 54% · 2022 37% · 2023 0% · 2024 1% · 2025 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
62% of Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 6 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
Jenna Deja
Interim Executive Director
Board chair
Brandon Harrington
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2023 and FY2024 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 6 funders to 14 funders, grant income rose $64k → $403k.
10 of 30 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 71% 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 Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago’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
Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 28% 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
77% 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 Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 47% · 2018 40% · 2019 52% · 2020 30% · 2021 41% · 2022 40% · 2023 32% — 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
47% of Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 60% 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
71% of Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago'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 $552k that is directly attributable, 59% of it comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.3M 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
Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago's revenue grew 42% between 2017 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago
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
61% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
61%
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 Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago: 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 Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago?
- Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago (Illinois) receives grants from 30 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,894,791 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($536,100). 18 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 71% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago have?
- IRS filings report 30 organizations giving $1,894,791 in grants to Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago, 18 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago?
- DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC is the largest funder on record, with $536,100 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago 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 Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago →
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 30 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