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Indiana · Nonprofit

CANDLES

CANDLES (Indiana) receives grants from 35 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,228,833 to it, the largest being MIGUEL B FERNANDEZ FAMILY FOUNDATION ($311,593). 20 of them have funded it in more than one year.

Revenue FY2024
$663k
Funders on record
35
Grants received
$1.2M
Net assets
$1.3M
20/35 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 62%
01What it does

What Candles does

Mission

CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center shines a light on the story of the Holocaust and Eva Kor to illuminate the world with hope, healing, respect and responsibility.

As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.

Programs

  1. CANDLES operates a museum facility that hosts some 10,000 visitors per year from all over the United States. The majority of our visitors are middle, high school, and college students. Visitors participate in an interactive tour with a survivor or docent. A significant percentage of our walk-in visitors travel hundreds of miles to visit the museum.

    $322,614 spent$26,356 earned by the program
    67% of program spending
  2. CANDLES administers educational travel programs to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland as well as other places, such as Romania and Hungary. The tours are led by survivors and scholars who offer immersive, intensive study tours of places with historical ties to the Holocaust, genocides, and other human rights crises. Our tours attract participants from all over the USA and internationally and from all walks of life. Special emphasis is placed on teachers and students, many of whom receive scholarships to attend.

    $155,405 spent$211,244 earned by the program
    32% of program spending
  3. Our film and speaker series brings survivors of genocide, award-winning filmmakers, scholars, and human rights advocates to speak with students, educators and community members. The theme of our series is "Be the Change", which encourages attendees to learn from history and take action to "be the change they wish to see" in their communities.

    $750 spent
    0% of program spending

The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $478,769.

02The organization over time

The organization over time

Each line starts at 100 in 2018, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2018, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended.

100 = 20182018 Revenue 100 ($998k) Expenses 100 ($987k) Net assets 100 ($1.5M)2020 Revenue 46 ($454k) Expenses 67 ($666k) Net assets 76 ($1.1M)2021 Revenue 75 ($747k) Expenses 49 ($482k) Net assets 94 ($1.4M)2022 Revenue 38 ($378k) Expenses 52 ($516k) Net assets 85 ($1.2M)2023 Revenue 55 ($552k) Expenses 50 ($491k) Net assets 89 ($1.3M)2024 Revenue 66 ($663k) Expenses 71 ($701k) Net assets 86 ($1.3M)
201820202021202220232024
Revenue (66)Expenses (71)Net assets (86)

Balance sheet

Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2020 to 2021, from $1.3M to $1.6M (+25%).

$1.5M
$1.3M
$1.6M
$1.5M
$1.6M
$1.6M
201820202021202220232024
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

2018
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 6 reported years ran a deficit.

$11k
’18
−$212k
’20
$265k
’21
−$137k
’22
$60k
’23
−$38k
’24
12
months of
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

Troy Fears

Executive Director

Board chair

Megan Wallace

Board Chair

As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.

The chief executive listed changed between the FY2020 and FY2021 filings.

201820202021202220232024
Listed141317151817
Joined··+7+1+3+2
No longer listed··3303
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 14 funders, grant income rose $79k → $345k.

12 of 35 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 35% 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 CANDLES’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 35 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

CANDLES has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 25% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left

38% 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 CANDLES.

25%
largest funder
42%
top three
~10
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 95% · 2018 91% · 2019 42% · 2020 42% · 2021 29% · 2022 49% · 2023 69% — 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 CANDLES's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 57% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y+3y+4y+5y+6y

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

CANDLES draws 66% of its grant income from funders outside Indiana, across 7 states in all.

IL
NY
IN
PA
NE
TX
FL

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
Indiana out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $427k arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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.

04Its place in the field

Organizations like CANDLES

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 Indiana

Nationally

05Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

68% of spending goes to programs.

Program 68%Management 17%Fundraising 14%

Governance

16
board members
100%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy–Whistleblower policy–Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990–Audited financials

Public support

94%

Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.

Footprint & structure

Files a return copy in 1 state

IN

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CANDLES: 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.

A paid feature, included from the $75 plan up. Sign in to download.

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 CANDLES?
CANDLES (Indiana) receives grants from 35 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,228,833 to it, the largest being MIGUEL B FERNANDEZ FAMILY FOUNDATION ($311,593). 20 of them have funded it in more than one year.
How many funders does CANDLES have?
IRS filings report 35 organizations giving $1,228,833 in grants to CANDLES, 20 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of CANDLES?
MIGUEL B FERNANDEZ FAMILY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $311,593 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like CANDLES find more funders?
Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Indiana. 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 Candles →

These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2018–2024), and the filings of 35 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