Asheville Area Arts Council
Asheville, NC · EIN 58-1371546. Reported 106 grants totalling $917,979 to 50 organizations across tax years 2020-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. For Asheville Area Arts Council, the IRS classifies it under arts & culture rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE A26Z) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 50 distinct organizations, with 6% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
- How much its list changes. 80% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 56% median for grantmaking charities, and above the 67% median for private foundations. It describes the organizations it already funds, not whether it would consider a new one.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $7,500. Half of what it reported fell between $6,000 and $10,000; the smallest was $5,010 and the largest $26,562. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asheville Symphony Society Inc | Asheville, NC | $57,317 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Leaf Community Arts | Black Mtn, NC | $57,007 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Pack Place Performing Arts | Asheville, NC | $43,370 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| The Center for Craft Creativity & Design Inc | Asheville, NC | $40,965 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Asheville Art Museum Association Inc | Asheville, NC | $39,425 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Asheville Community Theatre Inc | Asheville, NC | $39,095 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| North Carolina Stage Company | Asheville, NC | $33,800 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Asheville Glass Art School | Asheville, NC | $31,882 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Asheville Music School Sound Education | Asheville, NC | $31,191 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Delta House Life Development of Asheville Inc | Asheville, NC | $30,038 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Black Mountain College Museums & Arts Center | Asheville, NC | $29,695 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Umoja Health Wellness and Justice Collective | Asheville, NC | $29,500 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Montford Park Players | Asheville, NC | $27,775 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Arts for Life | Asheville, NC | $24,125 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Black Mountain-Swannanoa Art Center | Black Mtn, NC | $23,440 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Southern Highland Handicraft Guild Inc | Asheville, NC | $23,061 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Open Hearts Art Center | Asheville, NC | $21,858 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Asheville Downtown Association Inc | Asheville, NC | $21,765 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Asheville Creative Arts Inc | Black Mtn, NC | $21,500 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Asheville Writers in the Schools | Asheville, NC | $21,158 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Playground Stage Childrens Theatre | Weaverville, NC | $20,060 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Local Cloth Inc | Asheville, NC | $19,390 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Blue Ridge National Hertitage Area | Brevard, NC | $15,250 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Different Strokes Performing Arts Collective | Asheville, NC | $15,240 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| The Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre | Asheville, NC | $15,120 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Western North Carolina Historical Association Incorporation | Asheville, NC | $14,955 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| The Asheville City Schools Foundation | Asheville, NC | $12,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Blue Ridge Pride Center Inc | Asheville, NC | $12,225 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Cherokee Historical Association Inc | Cherokee, NC | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance | Asheville, NC | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce Community Betterment Foundation | Asheville, NC | $9,643 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| White Horse Stepstone | Black Mtn, NC | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Montford Moppets Youth Shakespeare Company | Asheville, NC | $8,131 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Beloved Asheville | Asheville, NC | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Hola Carolina | Asheville, NC | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Friends of Community Radio | Asheville, NC | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Hood Huggers Foundation | Asheville, NC | $6,006 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Story Parlor | Asheville, NC | $6,006 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Colaborativa La Milpa | Asheville, NC | $5,720 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Bob Moog Memorial Foundation for Electronic Music Inc | Asheville, NC | $5,686 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Artists Designing Evolution | Asheville, NC | $5,630 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Immediate Theatre Project | Asheville, NC | $5,570 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| The Magnetic Theatre | Asheville, NC | $5,470 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Womansong of Asheville Inc | Asheville, NC | $5,290 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| The Commons Collective LLC | Asheville, NC | $5,270 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Asheville Choral Society | Asheville, NC | $5,260 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Cantaria Inc of Asheville | Asheville, NC | $5,250 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Blue Ridge Orchestra | Asheville, NC | $5,200 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Attic Salt Theatre Company Inc | Asheville, NC | $5,130 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Aurora Studio & Gallery | Asheville, NC | $5,010 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
25 of 50 (50%) received money in more than one year over the 5 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- Leaf Global Arts
EVENT SUPPORT GRANT, ARTS BUSINESS RELIEF GRANT, GRASSROOTS ARTS PROGRAM, ARTS FOR SCHOOLS - Asheville Downtown Association Inc
EVENT SUPPORT GRANT, ARTS BUSINESS RELIEF GRANT - Asheville Symphony Society Inc
EVENT SUPPORT GRANT, ARTS BUSINESS RELIEF GRANT, ARTS FOR SCHOOLS, GRASSROOTS ARTS PROGRAM - Umoja Health Wellness and Justice Collective
ARTS FOR SCHOOLS, ARTS BUSINESS RELIEF GRANT, GRASSROOTS ARTS PROGRAM - Pack Place Performing Arts Inc
GRASSROOTS ARTS PROGRAM, ARTS BUSINESS RELIEF GRANT, ARTS BUILD COMMUNITY - Asheville City Schools Foundation Inc
GRASSROOTS ARTS PROGRAM, ARTS FOR SCHOOLS
What kind of organizations it funds
By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 38 of 50 recipients we could match to a registered organization. The categories are the IRS's, not ours -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 31 | $236,190 | $6,080 |
| 2021 | 2 | $11,156 | $5,578 |
| 2022 | 20 | $144,695 | $7,250 |
| 2023 | 19 | $140,500 | $6,000 |
| 2024 | 34 | $385,438 | $10,686 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are a sign of overlapping priorities and nothing more: they do not show that any of these funders would consider a new organization. Each page says what its filings show.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $7,500 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in North Carolina.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Related guides
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Asheville Area Arts Council's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2020-2024). Grant figures are from its returns. Recipient classifications, the concentration and retention figures and the funders that support the same organizations are our own calculations from them, described in how we build this.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 32 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 2 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: Po Box 507, Asheville, NC, 28802.
EIN 58-1371546 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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