Arts Council of Fairfax County Inc
Fairfax, VA · EIN 54-0784570. Reported 124 grants totalling $2,626,782 to 47 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, 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. The IRS has no activity classification on file for this one, so we cannot tell you whether it is a community foundation or a single-institution support fund. The recipient list below is the better guide.
- How spread out its giving is. 47 distinct organizations, with 8% 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. 87% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and above the 67% private foundations manage. This list is close to settled, so a newcomer has to displace someone rather than fill a gap.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $13,909. Half of what it reported fell between $8,082 and $31,679; the smallest was $5,050 and the largest $70,815. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1ST Stage Inc | Mclean, VA | $219,641 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| The Elden Street Players | Herndon, VA | $217,311 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Mclean Project for the Arts Inc | Mclean, VA | $215,656 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Creative Cauldron Inc | Falls Church, VA | $187,237 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Traveling Players Ensemble Inc | Great Falls, VA | $160,892 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| American Youth Philharmonic Orchestras | Annandale, VA | $157,263 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Balletnova Center for Dance | Falls Church, VA | $155,510 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Workhouse Arts Foundation Inc | Lorton, VA | $132,899 | 5 | 4 | 2024 |
| Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art Inc | Reston, VA | $123,354 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Fairfax Symphony Orchestra | Merrifield, VA | $99,072 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Music for Life | Springfield, VA | $73,369 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Mount Vernon Community Childrens Theatre | Alexandria, VA | $66,662 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| City of Fairfax Band Association Inc | Fairfax, VA | $61,571 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Daily Poetry Association | Fairfax, VA | $57,000 | 4 | 3 | 2024 |
| Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts | Vienna, VA | $48,992 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Public Art Reston | Reston, VA | $48,905 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| City of Fairfax Theatre Company | Fairfax, VA | $46,048 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Vienna Jammers Percussion Ensemble Inc | Vienna, VA | $41,038 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Choralis Foundation | Falls Church, VA | $39,496 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Reston Community Players Inc | Reston, VA | $32,099 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| We Rock Cancer | Mclean, VA | $31,590 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Gin Dance Company Inc | Reston, VA | $31,459 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Washington West International Film Festival | Mc Lean, VA | $30,213 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Artists in Motion | Herndon, VA | $29,650 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Reston Chorale | Reston, VA | $27,883 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Iranian American Community Center | Vienna, VA | $26,542 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Acting for Young People Inc | Fairfax, VA | $24,046 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| The Reston Chorale | Reston, VA | $23,544 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Vienna Arts Society Inc | Vienna, VA | $18,162 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Cappies of the National Capital Area | Fairfax, VA | $16,439 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Virginia Ballet Company and School | Fairfax, VA | $16,147 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Virginia Winds Academy Inc | Springfield, VA | $14,243 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Virginia Chamber Orchestra | Alexandria, VA | $14,032 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Arts Herndon Inc | Herndon, VA | $13,558 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| The Cappies Inc | Fairfax, VA | $13,429 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation | Falls Church, VA | $13,197 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| New Dominion Chorale Inc | Mclean, VA | $13,097 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Fall for the Book Inc | Fairfax, VA | $12,547 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| The Amadeus Concerts Inc | Great Falls, VA | $12,477 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Virginia Bronze Handbell Ringers of Northern Virginia | Oakton, VA | $11,883 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Providence Players of Fairfax | Fairfax, VA | $10,699 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Fractured Atlas | Hartsdale, NY | $9,793 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Falls Church Arts Inc | Falls Church, VA | $6,507 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Wartists Inc | Ashburn, VA | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Vienna Choral Society of Northern Virginia | Mc Lean, VA | $5,304 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Fairfax Ballet Company | Chantilly, VA | $5,276 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Community Art for Everyone Inc | Fairfax, VA | $5,050 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
37 of 47 (79%) received money in more than one year over the 4 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.
- 1ST Stage
OPERATING SUPPORT, PROJECT SUPPORT AND TICKET SUBSIDY GRANT - Mclean Project for the Arts
OPERATING SUPPORT AND PROJECT SUPPORT GRANT - Creative Cauldron
GENERAL OPERATING SUPPORT AND PANDEMIC RECOVERY - Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (tephra Ica)
TICKET SUBSIDY AND PARTICIPATION GRANT,OPERATING SUPPORT,PROJECT SUPPORT - Fairfax Symphony Orchestra
PROJECT SUPPORT AND TICKET SUBSIDY GRANT - Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art
GENERAL OPERATING SUPPORT, PROJECT SUPPORT, AND PANDEMIC RECOVERY
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 41 of 47 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 23 | $489,243 | $17,780 |
| 2022 | 36 | $651,819 | $11,257 |
| 2023 | 32 | $768,151 | $14,409 |
| 2024 | 33 | $717,569 | $14,296 |
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
100% of its giving went to organizations in Virginia. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
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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 the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.
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 $13,909 -- 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 Virginia.
- 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 Arts Council of Fairfax County Inc's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2021-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 33 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 0 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: 2667 Prosperity Avenue Suite a, Fairfax, VA, 22031.
EIN 54-0784570 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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