Wyoming · Nonprofit
Buffalo Bill Memorial Association
Buffalo Bill Memorial Association (Wyoming) receives grants from 49 organizations whose IRS filings report $30,455,214 to it, the largest being The Chicago Community Trust ($19,742,276). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 72% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $13M
- Funders on record
- 49
- Grants received
- $30M
- Net assets
- $167M
What Buffalo Bill Memorial Association does
Mission
Connecting people to the American West.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
CURATORIAL, LIBRARY, COLLECTIONS AND CONSERVATION:The Buffalo Bill Center of the West is an accredited museum through the American Alliance of Museums with over 150,000 square feet of exhibit space representing five disciplines - art, life and times of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, firearms, natural history of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and Plains Indians cultures and histories.The Center houses more than 104,000 collection objects, 7,800 linear feet of archival collections, 36,000 books, and more than a million historic photographs across its five museums and research library. The curatorial and museum services staffs serve as a resource to other organizations and audiences as a whole.
$7,539,580 spent$3,274,414 earned by the program69% of program spendingEDUCATION:The Center's educational offerings incorporate innovative, engaging, and thought-provoking methods of understanding art, cultural, and natural history subjects. On-site and virtual K-12 programs address national education standards, include STEM curricula, and promote inquiry-based learning. Virtual field trip programs have brought the museum and western themed content to more than 250,000 students around the globe. The Center's expertise in providing K-12 resources on-line and teacher professional development has been recognized through numerous partnerships with the state of Wyoming's Department of Education and higher education institutionsThe Center has expansive adult and family educational programs for the casual day visitor and the local community. This includes guided tours, raptor experience programs, children and adult workshops and field experiences, lectures, evening programs, and other activities. The Center partners with numerous community organizations to bring cultural events to Cody. The strategic plan addresses the Center's key role with the Cody community through providing educational opportunities within the region, as well as providing three annual…
$1,914,195 spent$337,909 earned by the program17% of program spendingRESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP:The Center prides itself on the production of original scholarship by staff and through partners. The Center's staff works independently and with outside scholars to connect audiences with groundbreaking knowledge about the American West. Research outputs include online and in print popular and scholarly publications covering a range of topics. The popular publication "Points West" magazine is produced four times a year and features articles on topics about the American West of past and present and newsworthy items pertaining to the Center.Continued on Schedule OCurrent Center research focuses include the intersection of popular culture and Western art; historical and contemporary firearms and publication of twice yearly ARMAX journal; Pinyon Jay ecology in Northern Wyoming; Absaroka Bat Census of the Absaroka Mountains; Pollinator Census in Park County; Phenology of the Paul Stock Trail; and perceptions of the American West through Pop art.The Center fosters external research through internship and fellowship programs and collaborative projects with research organizations and universities. The Center has an ongoing partnership with UC Berkeley to examine…
$1,523,003 spent14% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $10,976,778.
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 2018 to 2019, from $193M to $119M (−38%).
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: 2017 2% · 2018 5% · 2019 2% · 2020 0% · 2021 18% · 2022 16% · 2025 7%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
46% of Buffalo Bill Memorial Association’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (58% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 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
Rebecca West
CEO/Executive Director
Board chair
Linda Spencer Murchison
Chair of the Board
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 7 funders to 20 funders, grant income rose $1.3M → $7.4M.
20 of 49 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 72% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of Buffalo Bill Memorial Association’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 49 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
Buffalo Bill Memorial Association leans on a few funders — its largest provides 65% of grant income and the top three 90%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
72% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund Buffalo Bill Memorial Association.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 95% · 2018 87% · 2019 74% · 2020 65% · 2021 54% · 2022 17% · 2023 87% — 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
60% of Buffalo Bill Memorial Association's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 59% 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
72% of Buffalo Bill Memorial Association's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $8.6M that is directly attributable, 87% of it comes from funders outside Wyoming, across 13 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $22M arriving through sponsors registered in 15 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
Buffalo Bill Memorial Association holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 570 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 570 arts & culture nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding Buffalo Bill Memorial Association receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $2.9M on record.
- National Endowment for the Humanities$1.3M
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$1.0M
- Department of the Interior$528k
- National Endowment for the Arts$30k
- Department of Agriculture$20k
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 Buffalo Bill Memorial Association
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 Wyoming
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
79% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
73%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 51 states
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Buffalo Bill Asset Assurance Corporation · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Buffalo Bill Memorial Association: 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 Buffalo Bill Memorial Association?
- Buffalo Bill Memorial Association (Wyoming) receives grants from 49 organizations whose IRS filings report $30,455,214 to it, the largest being The Chicago Community Trust ($19,742,276). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 72% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Buffalo Bill Memorial Association have?
- IRS filings report 49 organizations giving $30,455,214 in grants to Buffalo Bill Memorial Association, 29 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Buffalo Bill Memorial Association?
- The Chicago Community Trust is the largest funder on record, with $19,742,276 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Buffalo Bill Memorial Association find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Wyoming. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
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 49 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