Arizona · Nonprofit
SOUNDS ACADEMY
SOUNDS ACADEMY (Arizona) receives grants from 29 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,756,211 to it, the largest being Virginia G Piper Charitable Trust ($621,047). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $882k
- Funders on record
- 29
- Grants received
- $1.8M
- Net assets
- $427k
What Sounds Academy does
Mission
Our vision is to provide music education opportunities to a wide variety of children while removing any barriers that children may have in receiving quality music education.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Sounds Academy is a non-profit music education organization that teaches, mentors, and provides musical experiences and opportunities for underserved youth. Students receive individual lessons and group classes on all instruments and voice. Instruments are provided to those who cannot afford one. Sounds Academy students learn the character values of creativity, leadership, perseverance, resilience, and teamwork through music education. We teach these values in our musical access program, which connects students to live music and instruments through our instrument petting zoos, our school programs for lower income schools and community centers, our solo program, which provides one-on-one instruction, and the collective ensembles that teach music theory and ensemble playing techniques.
$682,957 spentof which $167,472 as grants$882,117 earned by the program100% of program spendingSince september of 2014, we have given over 73,000 lessons and classes. Over 25,000 students havebeen exposed to live music and instruments through our musical access program. We have given over$500,000 in scholarships for students to participate in music education programs, camps, andcollege. Today we have over 400 students in our solo and school programs that receive instrumentsand weekly instruction.
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $682,957.
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 2021 to 2022, from $155k to $396k (+156%).
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 5% · 2021 14% · 2022 14% · 2023 11% · 2024 5% · 2025 6%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
70% of SOUNDS ACADEMY’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 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
Johnson K
Founder/CEO
Board chair
Halavais J
Board chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 16 funders, grant income rose $6k → $269k.
7 of 29 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 19% 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 SOUNDS ACADEMY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 28 of 29 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
SOUNDS ACADEMY has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 35% 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
44% 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 SOUNDS ACADEMY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 67% · 2019 41% · 2020 42% · 2021 24% · 2022 29% · 2023 28% — 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
50% of SOUNDS ACADEMY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 72% 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
88% of SOUNDS ACADEMY's grant income comes from Arizona funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $333k arriving through sponsors registered in 5 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
SOUNDS ACADEMY has grown faster than three-quarters of the 11,634 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 11,634 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Government funding SOUNDS ACADEMY receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $10k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$10k
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 SOUNDS ACADEMY
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 Arizona
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
76% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
99%
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 SOUNDS ACADEMY: 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 SOUNDS ACADEMY?
- SOUNDS ACADEMY (Arizona) receives grants from 29 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,756,211 to it, the largest being Virginia G Piper Charitable Trust ($621,047). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SOUNDS ACADEMY have?
- IRS filings report 29 organizations giving $1,756,211 in grants to SOUNDS ACADEMY, 21 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SOUNDS ACADEMY?
- Virginia G Piper Charitable Trust is the largest funder on record, with $621,047 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SOUNDS ACADEMY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Arizona. 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 Sounds Academy →
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 29 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