Nashville · Community Arts · Annual Report 2025
A letter from our Executive Director
01 — 06When we started Porchlight in 2009, the idea was almost embarrassingly simple: turn the lights on, open the door, and let the neighborhood make something together. Sixteen years later, that's still the whole plan — it just reaches a lot more porches.
This year, more than 14,200 neighbors made art with us, across nine neighborhoods. We paid 112 local artists real wages to teach. We painted 47 murals that will outlast all of us. And we did it while keeping 78 cents of every dollar in direct program work.
None of it is ours, really. It belongs to the kid who picked up a brush for the first time on Buchanan Street, and to the porch on Douglas Avenue where a hundred strangers became neighbors over a Tuesday-night set. Thank you for keeping the lights on with us.
Maya Ellison · Executive Director & Co-founder
Maya Ellison, Executive Director
16 years
of keeping the lights on — since 2009, never once gone dark.
Our mission is free, year-round access to the arts for every Nashville neighborhood. No audition. No fee. No gatekeeping. Three beliefs hold it up.
We don't screen for talent or ask for a résumé. If you show up, you belong in the room — and there's a brush, a mic, or a seat waiting for you.
Every program is built where people already are — on the porch, the corner, the school gym — and led by artists who live a few blocks away.
Murals that outlast a season. Skills that pay. A studio that's still open next year. We invest in art that the neighborhood gets to keep.
A whole city, making.
The year in numbers
03 — 06neighbors made art with us
free programs, every one no-cost to attend
local artists paid real wages to teach
neighborhoods across Nashville
new murals painted & donated to the city
porch concerts, all free & outdoors
volunteer hours given by neighbors
of participants returned for a second program
What we made together
04 — 06
Mural Corps · Buchanan St.
Paid teaching artists and neighborhood teens design and paint large-scale murals together — turning blank walls into landmarks the block helped make. Every design starts with a community paint day.
Porch Sessions · Douglas Ave.
Every week, a local act plays a real front porch and the whole street is invited. No tickets, no stage, no distance between the music and the people — just a neighborhood pulling chairs into the yard.
Open Studio · Eastside
Six days a week, anyone can walk into Open Studio and make something — clay, screenprint, paint, sound. Materials are free, the help is friendly, and nobody asks why you came.
The shape of the year
Neighbors reached, by year
Total annual participants, 2021–2025
Free program hours delivered
Hours of no-cost arts programming per year
Who showed up
Participants by age group
Where the lights were on
Nashville neighborhoods served in 2025
Open books
05 — 06We raised $1.84M in 2025 and kept the overhead lean on purpose — so the porch lights stay on, not the back office.
How we spent it
Total expenses · $1.72M
of every dollar funds programs in the neighborhood
keeps the studio open, insured & staffed
raises the next dollar through events & grants
Where it came from
Revenue by source · $1.84M
Program investment
$1.34M across the work
total revenue raised in 2025
individual donors gave this year
of every dollar to direct programs
clean independent audits, six years running
Looking ahead
06 — 06Bring Porch Sessions to five new neighborhoods and add a second mobile studio.
Break ground on a year-round studio & gallery the neighborhood gets to keep.
Double our teaching roster and launch a paid apprenticeship for graduating youth.
How you keep the lights on
Every dollar turns a light on somewhere. Here are three ways to be part of next year.
A recurring gift keeps a porch light on all year — and is our steadiest source of support.
Offer your front steps for a session and we'll bring the music, the chairs, and the neighbors.
Hand out brushes, set up a stage, or teach a skill. Three hours lights up a whole block.
A community arts collective keeping the lights on across Nashville since 2009.
A note on this report
Porchlight is a fictional organization. This report is a design sample created to show how an annual report could look & feel.