California · Nonprofit
CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY (California) receives grants from 44 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,593,118 to it, the largest being THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ($913,454). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 70% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $5.3M
- Funders on record
- 44
- Grants received
- $2.6M
- Net assets
- $0
What California Historical Society does
Mission
Our vision is to inspire and empower people to make Californias richly diverse past a meaningful part of their contemporary lives.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Library & CollectionsThe CHS Collection represents the environmental, economic, social, political, and cultural heritage of the entire state of California, including materials from outside California that contribute to a greater understanding of the state and its people.The collection comprises a diverse body of materials documenting the history of the state, including: books and pamphlets; manuscript collections; photographs; printed ephemera, periodicals, posters, broadsides, maps, and newspapers; the Kemble Collection on Western Printing and Publishing; works of art, including paintings, drawings, and lithographs; and artifacts and costumes.
$623,483 spent100% of program spendingwe continue to host our live webinars and produce our newsletters, blogs, and social media content. Recent popular programs have included John A. Todd: Photographing Mining Pollution in Gold Rush California; My biography is the history of California: Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo and his Recuerdos; We Are Not Animals: Indigenous Survival and Rebellion in 19th Century Santa Cruz; Emily and Matilda Bancroft: Women Writers in Their Own Rightall available for free on our YouTube channel.Upcoming programs include California, a Slave State with Jean Pfaelzer on July 11; George Melndez Wright: The Fight for Wildlife and Wilderness in the National Parks with Jerry Emory in August; and Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties with Jon Wiener in September.
The 2 programs described on its FY2023 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $623,483.
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 $7.4M to $4.3M (−41%).
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: 2018 5% · 2019 8% · 2020 18% · 2021 41% · 2023 9% · 2024 0%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
101% of CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY’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. 7 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
Jen Whitley
Interim CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2021 and FY2022 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 19 funders to 10 funders, grant income fell $401k → $383k.
10 of 44 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 70% 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 CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 44 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
CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 35% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
78% 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 CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 26% · 2018 28% · 2019 31% · 2020 36% · 2021 35% · 2022 33% · 2023 39% — growing more concentrated.
“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
37% of CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 48% 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
70% of CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY'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 $775k that is directly attributable, 72% of it comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.8M arriving through sponsors registered in 5 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
CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY's revenue fell 23% between 2017 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $100k on record.
- National Archives and Records Administration$100k
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 CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
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 California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
6% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
31%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY: 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 CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY?
- CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY (California) receives grants from 44 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,593,118 to it, the largest being THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ($913,454). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 70% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY have?
- IRS filings report 44 organizations giving $2,593,118 in grants to CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 21 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY?
- THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $913,454 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. 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 44 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 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing