New York · Nonprofit
RECESS ACTIVITIES INC
RECESS ACTIVITIES INC (New York) receives grants from 33 organizations whose IRS filings report $9,803,644 to it, the largest being THE ANDREW W MELLON FOUNDATION ($2,300,000). 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 FY2024
- $647k
- Funders on record
- 33
- Grants received
- $9.8M
- Net assets
- $3.9M
What Recess Activities Inc does
Mission
Recess partners with artists and youth to build a more just and equitable creative community. By welcoming radical thinkers to imagine and shape networks of resilience and safety, recess defines and advances the possibilities of contemporary art. Our programs offer space and resources to generate art, ideas and actions that challenge dominant narratives and activate new forms. Recess is always free and open to the public to serve as a meeting place for meaningful exchange across a multiplicity of communities.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
Recess programs reimagine traditional studio, exhibition, and classroom platforms, offering artists, communities, and participants resources to generate new works that present alternatives to dominant and oppressive systems. Our core programs operate within an ecosystem wherein each initiative supports and informs the other. Assembly offers system-impacted young people aged 18-26 an inroad to art and connections to working artists, while serving as an alternative to incarceration and its intersecting systems of oppression. Session allows artists to directly engage and partner with communities throughout the creative process. For systems change and narrative shift. Critical writing supports a writer producing a new critical text in dialogue with our artists' projects.partnerships take our programs offsite in partnership with groups and organizations that share our commitment to art as it intersects with social justice.
$1,349,114 spent$3,236 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,349,114.
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 2022 to 2023, from $3.4M to $5.8M (+72%).
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 8% · 2018 12% · 2019 6% · 2020 6% · 2021 5% · 2022 6% · 2023 5% · 2024 17%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
90% of RECESS ACTIVITIES INC’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. 3 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.
Board chair
Wanett I Clyde
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 14 funders, grant income rose $85k → $1.7M.
8 of 33 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 RECESS ACTIVITIES INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 33 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
RECESS ACTIVITIES INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 23% 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
56% 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 RECESS ACTIVITIES INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 73% · 2018 43% · 2019 56% · 2020 27% · 2021 64% · 2022 65% · 2023 50% — 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
40% of RECESS ACTIVITIES INC'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
54% of RECESS ACTIVITIES INC'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 $4.6M that is directly attributable, 92% of it comes from New York funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $5.2M 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
RECESS ACTIVITIES INC is better cushioned than half of the 17,953 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 17,953 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Government funding RECESS ACTIVITIES INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $160k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$160k
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 RECESS ACTIVITIES INC
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 New York
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
70% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
72%
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 RECESS ACTIVITIES INC: 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 RECESS ACTIVITIES INC?
- RECESS ACTIVITIES INC (New York) receives grants from 33 organizations whose IRS filings report $9,803,644 to it, the largest being THE ANDREW W MELLON FOUNDATION ($2,300,000). 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 RECESS ACTIVITIES INC have?
- IRS filings report 33 organizations giving $9,803,644 in grants to RECESS ACTIVITIES INC, 21 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of RECESS ACTIVITIES INC?
- THE ANDREW W MELLON FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $2,300,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like RECESS ACTIVITIES INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in New York. 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 FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 33 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