Minnesota · Nonprofit
SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS
SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS (Minnesota) receives grants from 125 organizations whose IRS filings report $21,712,063 to it, the largest being THE ANDREW W MELLON FOUNDATION ($2,100,000). 65 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $8.3M
- Funders on record
- 125
- Grants received
- $22M
- Net assets
- $16M
What Springboard for the Arts does
Mission
To cultivate vibrant arts communities by connecting artists with the skills, information and services they need to make a living and a life.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
The rural program enhances support for artists and communities in the upper midwest through workshops, consultations, a resource center, and a visiting artist program in fergus falls. Local initiatives in otter tail county include an equipment lending library and a guaranteed minimum income program, benefiting around 200 artists and 3,250 community members in 2025. Regionally, the program features the rural regenerator fellowship for 12 artists, the annual rural futures summit for 150 leaders, the falls community arts exchange, and the artists on main street initiative, reaching about 195 artists, 25 leaders, and 500 community members in 2025.
$1,024,692 spentof which $170,774 as grants15% of program spendingSpringboard for the Arts' community development program creates pathways for artists to meaningfully connect with their communities to address shared challenges and opportunities such as environmental stewardship, economic justice, housing, and transportation. Building on springboard's long history of demonstrating how artists strengthen community well-being, the program supports projects that foster connection, joy, and civic imagination. This includes artists respond: weaving social connection, which commissions artists to build belonging and reduce social isolation through creative partnerships across minnesota, and springboard on ice, which transforms our neighborhood ice rink into a space for performance, learning, and community celebration. The program also partners with neighborhood organizations to engage residents in envisioning the future of their communities. Through training, project support, and cross-sector collaborations, we position artists as civic partners and essential leaders in shaping more connected, equitable, and creative places across minnesota.
$702,572 spentof which $143,250 as grants10% of program spendingSpringboard for the Arts' economic opportunity programming provides vital resources for artists, including professional development, access to health and legal services, and a resource lab. In fy25, we enhanced our resource center with computer workstations, adobe creative cloud, and expanded in-person support, serving over 3,000 artists through workshops, consultations, and panels. We also developed our artist career consultants and facilitated a successful hybrid approach for the work of art workshops. The guaranteed minimum income pilot expanded to support 100 artists from diverse communities for 5 years, promoting racial and gender equity. The growth fund awarded $2,500 to 50 artists and creative businesses, while our makers-to-market program hosted two successful pop-up markets, benefiting 35 vendors and attracting around 300 attendees each.
$1,545,463 spentof which $500,000 as grants22% of program spendingSpringboard's national work includes consulting for clients and partners across the country, our technical training art-train, and the creative change coalition. Client work includes customized program advising, technical assistance, presenting, and workshops. The creative change coalition is a national coalition of place-based community organizations that center people, creativity, and equity. The coalition includes regular, public, and free technical assistance webinars, field conversations, discussion and connection opportunities for coalition members, as well as additional resources and initiatives aimed at increasing visibility and efficacy of the field of creative, place-based, community-informed work. Springboard for the Arts' incubator: a fiscal sponsorship program provides fiscal sponsorship for arts groups and individual artist projects that do not want (or are not ready) to become tax-exempt nonprofit organizations. In fy24 we managed revenues for the 207 artist-led projects in the program during that period.
$3,714,219 spentof which $2,860,405 as grants53% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $6,986,946.
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 $9.0M to $16M (+79%).
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 4% · 2018 9% · 2019 3% · 2020 3% · 2021 6% · 2022 10% · 2023 1% · 2024 5% · 2025 4%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
90% of SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 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
Laura Zabel
Executive director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 16 funders to 47 funders, grant income rose $1.0M → $3.7M.
26 of 125 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 13% 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 SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 125 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
SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 10% of grant income, and it takes 7 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 7 funders to its left
31% 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 SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 48% · 2018 31% · 2019 32% · 2020 16% · 2021 20% · 2022 23% · 2023 21% — 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
33% of SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 52% 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
SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS draws 58% of its grant income from funders outside Minnesota, across 16 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.8M arriving through sponsors registered in 16 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
SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 3,430 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,430 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $611k on record — $610k federal, $1k state.
- National Endowment for the Arts$610k
- (HH) CONSULTANT SVCS (TO DEPTS)$1k
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 SPRINGBOARD FOR THE 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 Minnesota
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
91% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
50%
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 SPRINGBOARD FOR THE 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 SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS?
- SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS (Minnesota) receives grants from 125 organizations whose IRS filings report $21,712,063 to it, the largest being THE ANDREW W MELLON FOUNDATION ($2,100,000). 65 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS have?
- IRS filings report 125 organizations giving $21,712,063 in grants to SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS, 65 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS?
- THE ANDREW W MELLON FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $2,100,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Minnesota. 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 125 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