Vermont · Nonprofit
VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC
VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC (Vermont) receives grants from 28 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,836,535 to it, the largest being THE VERMONT COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($1,602,370). 14 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 89% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.2M
- Funders on record
- 28
- Grants received
- $2.8M
- Net assets
- $1.6M
What Vermont Council on the Arts Inc does
Mission
The council's mission is to advance and preserve the arts at the center of vermont communities. It offers grants and services including workshops, professional development opportunities and arts information, and is the state's foremost arts advocate.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
See schedule ocommunity arts programs provide grants and services to strengthen vermont communities through arts and cultural activities, and to increase public awareness of the positive role played by artists and arts organizations in their communities. Grants were awarded to 85 individuals and 201 organizations in every county and 100 towns across vermont. Public art programs included 6 animating infrastructure grants that supported projects integrating art into community infrastructure. Cultural facilities grants enabled 16 cultural organizations to make critical upgrades to existing buildings or to make public arts facilities safe, accessible, and welcoming to patrons with disabilities. Unprecedented one-time funding from the state enabled the arts council to offer the creative futures grant program for creative sector entities that sustained economic harm due to the pandemic. The vermont creative network (vcn), a coalition of individual creatives, local and regional planners and policymakers, community development professionals, and cultural and nonprofit leaders formed in 2016, convened stakeholder meetings to advance vermont's creative economy. The council also continued to…
$1,065,972 spentof which $302,800 as grants$1,600 earned by the program44% of program spendingSee schedule oarts education programs provide grants and services to promote high quality arts education and lifelong learning in and through the arts. 31 grants were awarded to schools and non-profit organizations, including 7 head start partnership grants to bring arts-integrated learning to vermont's most vulnerable students. Operating grants awarded in the community development program (see 4a) also serve students by supporting arts education in their communities. The council awarded 8 grants to organizations providing arts programming to older adults through the new creative aging initiative. Providing. Arts education programs include outreach to rural, underserved schools, and support provided to teaching artists, including maintenance of a statewide teaching artist roster and professional development workshops.
$265,108 spentof which $165,310 as grants11% of program spendingSee schedule oarts creation and development programs provide grants and services to support the development of vermont artists and to provide greater opportunities for the creation and presentation of excellent work. Grants in these categories have been substantially increased in recent years, partially in response to the pandemic, with 45 grants awarded to artists for professional development and 25 grants to support individual artists' creative projects. Grant-seeker workshops, local arts networking meetings and other workshops were held.
$1,112,051 spentof which $993,027 as grants46% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,443,131.
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 $1.7M to $3.7M (+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: 2017 56% · 2018 55% · 2019 51% · 2020 88% · 2021 80% · 2022 87% · 2023 94% · 2024 82% · 2025 75%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC’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
Susan Evans Mcclure
Executive director
Board chair
Mark Foley
Board chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2017 and FY2018 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 8 funders, grant income rose $16k → $630k.
6 of 28 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 89% 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 VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC’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
VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 56% of grant income and the top three 89%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
96% 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 VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 50% · 2018 80% · 2019 31% · 2020 59% · 2021 79% · 2022 89% · 2023 64% — growing more concentrated.
“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
25% of VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 50% 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
89% of VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS 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 $301k that is directly attributable, 77% of it comes from funders outside Vermont, across 11 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.5M arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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
VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC 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
Government funding VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $18.8M on record — $8.8M federal, $9.9M state.
- National Endowment for the Arts$8.8M
- Department of Agriculture$25k
- Other Grants$7.6M
- Gr, Awards, Scholarships&Loans$1.7M
- Grants$379k
- Grants to Municipalities$306k
- Other Purchased Services$10k
- Sponsorships$5k
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 VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS 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 Vermont
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
81% 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 VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS 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 VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC?
- VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC (Vermont) receives grants from 28 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,836,535 to it, the largest being THE VERMONT COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($1,602,370). 14 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 89% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC have?
- IRS filings report 28 organizations giving $2,836,535 in grants to VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC, 14 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC?
- THE VERMONT COMMUNITY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,602,370 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like VERMONT COUNCIL ON THE ARTS INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Vermont. 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 28 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