Colorado · Nonprofit
ASPEN ART MUSEUM
ASPEN ART MUSEUM (Colorado) receives grants from 125 organizations whose IRS filings report $23,190,328 to it, the largest being MELVA BUCKSBAUM FAMILY FOUNDATION ($5,000,000). 65 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.6M
- Funders on record
- 125
- Grants received
- $23M
- Net assets
- $41M
What Aspen Art Museum does
Mission
The Aspen Art Museum is a non-collecting institution committed to advancing contemporary art and driving cultural change through exhibitions, critical dialogues, and community engagement. Inspired by its alpine surroundings and aspen's history of experimentation and exchange, the museum embraces creative possibilities that emerge when artists are invited to leave their imprint on the museum.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
The primary goal of the Aspen Art Museum (aam) is to be a community resource for the appreciation, education, and discussion of contemporary art. Aam exhibitions can be summarized as falling into three general categories: first-time u.s. Museum exhibitions by significant emerging contemporary artists from around the globe; solo exhibitions by important or established contemporary artists that focus on new, unrecognized, or underappreciated aspects of their work; group exhibitions curated to address prescient or topical contemporary cultural, social, or political subject matter, or otherwise corresponding to an organizing curatorial theme. The aam is committed to providing exhibition and educational programming on a year-round basis for visitors to the roaring fork valley and surrounding colorado communities.
$2,445,939 spent54% of program spendingThe aam strives to make contemporary art meaningful to a wide array of audiences through interpretive projects and diverse, community-based programming. These object-based learning opportunities are designed to engage audiences in thought-provoking experiences of art, culture, and society, thus reflecting our institutional mission. Programs occur both in the museum and throughout the community, and provide the opportunity for audiences to see and respond to contemporary art through hands-on workshops, gallery talks, and tours, lectures, and innovative activities related to current exhibitions. In the 2024-2025 fiscal period, the aam served students and teachers through school tours and classroom visits, youth, family, and teen programs, community programs, and tours.
$562,529 spent$1,185 earned by the program12% of program spendingAuxiliary services relate to the museum shop. The museum shop offers a variety of contemporary art books, focusing on contemporary artists, group exhibitions at other renowned institutions, and art history publications. Additionally, the shop offers children's books, creative activities, and thoughtfully curated gift items related to current exhibitions, which engage audiences in thought provoking experiences of art, culture, and society.
$1,522,471 spent$23,169 earned by the program34% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $4,530,939.
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 2023 to 2024, from $42M to $48M (+13%).
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: 2021 13% · 2022 1% · 2023 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
97% of ASPEN ART MUSEUM’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 6 of the last 9 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.
Chief executive
Nicola Lees
Chief executive officer
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2019 and FY2020 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 39 funders to 49 funders, grant income fell $2.5M → $2.4M.
12 of 125 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 21% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $20M from 10 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Aspen Art Museum Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money ASPEN ART MUSEUM raised.
From the IRS filings of ASPEN ART MUSEUM’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 125 funders by total. 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
ASPEN ART MUSEUM has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 22% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 45% · 2018 12% · 2019 54% · 2020 37% · 2021 49% · 2022 36% · 2023 41% — 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
43% of ASPEN ART MUSEUM's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 52% 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
ASPEN ART MUSEUM draws 92% of its grant income from funders outside Colorado, across 22 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $5.0M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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
ASPEN ART MUSEUM's revenue fell 49% between 2017 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,430 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding ASPEN ART MUSEUM receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $108k on record.
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$108k
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 ASPEN ART MUSEUM
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 Colorado
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
65% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
79%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Aspen Art Museum Foundation · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for ASPEN ART MUSEUM: 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 ASPEN ART MUSEUM?
- ASPEN ART MUSEUM (Colorado) receives grants from 125 organizations whose IRS filings report $23,190,328 to it, the largest being MELVA BUCKSBAUM FAMILY FOUNDATION ($5,000,000). 65 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does ASPEN ART MUSEUM have?
- IRS filings report 125 organizations giving $23,190,328 in grants to ASPEN ART MUSEUM, 65 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of ASPEN ART MUSEUM?
- MELVA BUCKSBAUM FAMILY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $5,000,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like ASPEN ART MUSEUM find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Colorado. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Aspen Art Museum →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 125 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing