The Cma Foundation
Nashville, TN · EIN 27-4842832. Reported 82 grants totalling $4,685,125 to 45 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. For The Cma Foundation, the IRS classifies it as a support organization for one specific institution (NTEE T11).
- How spread out its giving is. 45 distinct organizations, with 15% 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. 67% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is about the 57% median for grantmaking charities -- noticeably lower than the 67% private foundations manage. Organizations like this one rotate more of their list each year, which is where an opening for a newcomer tends to be.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $25,000. Half of what it reported fell between $25,000 and $75,000; the smallest was $5,125 and the largest $500,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mr Hollands Opus Foundation Inc | Burbank, CA | $708,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education | Dover, DE | $625,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Music Health Alliance Inc | Nashville, TN | $400,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Music Will Inc | Covina, CA | $220,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Notes for Notes Incorporated | Santa Barbara, CA | $200,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Save the Music Foundation | New York, NY | $200,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Country Music Foundation Inc | Nashville, TN | $150,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Tennessee Performing Arts Center Management Corporation | Nashville, TN | $150,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Youth on Record | Denver, CO | $150,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Building for the Arts Ny Inc | New York, NY | $135,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Nashville Public Education Foundation | Nashville, TN | $110,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Artistyear | Philadelphia, PA | $100,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Backline Care Inc | Portland, OR | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Musicares Foundation Inc | Santa Monica, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Porter's Call | Franklin, TN | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Roots of Music Inc | New Orleans, LA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Tennessee Arts Academy Foundation | Nashville, TN | $100,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Touring Career Workshop | Nashville, TN | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Memphis Equity Through Arts Meta Incorporated | Memphis, TN | $75,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| National Association for Music Education | Herndon, VA | $75,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Peoples Music School Inc | Chicago, IL | $75,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Sphinx Organization Inc | Detroit, MI | $75,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Tennessee Music Education Association | Murfreesboro, TN | $73,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Follow Your Heart Arts Program | Ridgeland, MS | $55,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools | Nashville, TN | $52,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Girls Rock Sb | Santa Barbara, CA | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Phoenix Conservatory of Music | Litchfield Pk, AZ | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Quest Center for Art & Community Development Inc | Dickson, TN | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| W O Smith Nashville Community Music School | Nashville, TN | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| The Touring Professionals Alliance Inc | Burbank, CA | $36,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Artsed Tennessee | Tullahoma, TN | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Equity Arc | Cincinnati, OH | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Massachusetts Music Educators Assoc | Needham, MA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation Inc | New Orleans, LA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Stonier Scholarship Inc | Towson, MD | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Quadrant Research | Warren, NJ | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| The National Museum of African American Music | Nashville, TN | $11,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Choral Arts Link | Nashville, TN | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Community Arts Collective | La Vergne, TN | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Nashville Peacemakers | Nashville, TN | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Texas Music Project Inc | Dallas, TX | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Tools for Tomorrow Inc | Palm Desert, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Williamson County Schools | Franklin, TN | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Yellow Jacket Band Association Inc | Hazlehurst, GA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| North Carolina Music Educators Association | Raleigh, NC | $5,125 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
23 of 45 (51%) 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.
- The Mr Hollands Opus Foundation
FY24 GRANT - MUSIC HAS VALUE PARTNERSHIP - Music Health Alliance
MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT FOR MUSIC INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS - Music Will
GENERAL SUPPORT TO ADVANCE RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES IN MUSIC EDUCATION FIELD - Notes for Notes
GENERAL SUPPORT FOR PROGRAMMING TO ENHANCE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT THROUGH MUSIC LEARNING - VH1 Save the Music Foundation
FY24 GRANT - SAVE THE MUSIC - Nashville Public Education Foundation
CHEVY MTOE GRANTS - MNPS MTOE SCHOOL AWARD
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 37 of 45 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 | 12 | $656,000 | $24,500 |
| 2022 | 9 | $784,000 | $25,000 |
| 2023 | 27 | $1,328,125 | $25,000 |
| 2024 | 34 | $1,917,000 | $50,000 |
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
32% of its giving went to organizations in Tennessee. 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 $25,000 -- 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 Tennessee.
- 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.
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Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from The Cma Foundation'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 34 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: 35 Music Square East 201, Nashville, TN, 37203.
EIN 27-4842832 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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