Maine · Nonprofit
WATERVILLE CREATES
WATERVILLE CREATES (Maine) receives grants from 20 organizations whose IRS filings report $11,367,692 to it, the largest being HAROLD ALFOND FOUNDATION ($10,514,983). 13 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $4.4M
- Funders on record
- 20
- Grants received
- $11M
- Net assets
- $3.4M
What Waterville Creates does
Mission
Arts experiences for all.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
To enhance the creative and artistic vitality of our community through outstanding arts education and exhibitions and collaborative events and programs. Ticonic gallery + studios includes a versatile exhibition space that presents 4-5 shows per year, a dedicated clay studio that offers a range of classes as well as an open membership program, and a classroom that hosts year-round arts education programs for youth and adults. In 2024, ticonic gallery presented five exhibitions: 45,000 quilt project; youth art month; together: hearing, holding, healing; at play: works by tom jessen; and the holiday bazaar.
$1,296,639 spent$104,646 earned by the program34% of program spendingTo enhance quality of life and build community through the performing arts. The 810-seat waterville opera house presents live theatre, dance, concerts, and educational programming for audiences of all ages. In 2023, the waterville opera house (woh) produced four plays, including drinking habits, head over heels, miss holmes returns, and the spongebob musical. In addition, woh hosted 4 school shows, 3 weeks of theatre camp, and 35 live performances, including tig notaro, chistopher cross, preservation hall jazz band, cirque kalabante, and elvis costello.
$1,849,645 spent$1,429,922 earned by the program48% of program spendingTo educate, entertain, and build community through film. Celebrating the art of cinema and inspiring a love for film, the maine film center (mfc) offers daily screenings of first-run art house films, hosts numerous special screenings and community events, including free screenings for local schools, and presents the 10-day maine international film festival (miff) in july. In 2024, mfc screen 388 individual films across 3,500 showtimes.
$716,127 spent$275,332 earned by the program19% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $3,862,411.
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 $5.3M to $6.5M (+23%).
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 1% · 2021 42%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
58% of WATERVILLE CREATES’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. 5 of the last 7 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
Jim Laliberty
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 5 funders, grant income fell $2.1M → $1.7M.
4 of 20 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 1% 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 WATERVILLE CREATES’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
WATERVILLE CREATES leans on a few funders — its largest provides 92% of grant income and the top three 97%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 99% · 2018 98% · 2019 80% · 2020 93% · 2021 85% · 2022 92% · 2023 95% — 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 WATERVILLE CREATES's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 65% 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
100% of WATERVILLE CREATES's grant income comes from Maine funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $101k 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
WATERVILLE CREATES has grown faster than three-quarters of the 5,127 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 5,127 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding WATERVILLE CREATES receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $85k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$85k
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 WATERVILLE CREATES
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 Maine
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
78% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
64%
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 WATERVILLE CREATES: 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 WATERVILLE CREATES?
- WATERVILLE CREATES (Maine) receives grants from 20 organizations whose IRS filings report $11,367,692 to it, the largest being HAROLD ALFOND FOUNDATION ($10,514,983). 13 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does WATERVILLE CREATES have?
- IRS filings report 20 organizations giving $11,367,692 in grants to WATERVILLE CREATES, 13 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WATERVILLE CREATES?
- HAROLD ALFOND FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $10,514,983 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WATERVILLE CREATES find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Maine. 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 20 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