Wisconsin · Nonprofit
CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC
CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC (Wisconsin) receives grants from 13 organizations whose IRS filings report $438,054 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($311,440). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 96% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $933k
- Funders on record
- 13
- Grants received
- $438k
- Net assets
- $361k
What Center for Railroad Photography and Art Inc does
Mission
To preserve and present significant images of railroading, interpreting them in print, exhibitions, and on the internet.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Collectionthe center maintains an archive of more than 600,000 photographs, paintings, drawings, and prints; its staff members perform archival processing of this collection into archival-safe storage materials. Anticipated additions in 2025 and beyond will push the total number of images close to 1,100,000. The center digitizes many of the images as well as their associated metadata, sharing them through its website, social media channels, and publications, while making them available to researchers, authors, and other users. Growth of the collection has led to a substantial increase in image usage requests, and images from the center's archive now appear frequently in books and magazines by other publishers and authors. One example is the "archives treasure" feature that appears in each issue of classic trains magazine and spotlights a photographer in the center's archive. The center's collection is not recorded on the organization's financial statements.collection priorities in 2024 were the ongoing processing of several large and significant collections, including those of stan kistler, henry posner iii, jim shaughnessy, richard steinheimer, and karl zimmermann. The center…
$435,560 spent61% of program spendingPublicationsthe center publishes a quarterly journal, railroad heritage, that uses photographs and art to inform the public about the railroad's influence on economic growth and development, popular culture, and the lives of the hundreds of thousands of men and women who built, operate, and maintain railroads in north america and beyond. Books add to this message, and the center continues to publish one each year. The title for 2024 is burlington's spectacular steam program. It draws from the people-focused photography in the center's john e. Gruber collection and the expert writing of two center board members to show the cultural impact of the burlington steam excursions of the 1950s and 1960s.
$107,910 spent15% of program spendingConferencesthe center hosts an annual conference near chicago and sometimes another regional conference in a different city featuring presentations about railroad photography and art. The events give photographers and researchers the opportunity to network and exchange ideas through programming and social activities. Attendees come from all over the united states and several other countries. The 2023 conference sold out with 170 attendees in less than two months; a move to a larger auditorium for the 2024 conference expanded capacity to 192 and the event was sold out. The center hosted its first online program in 2020 and now manages a monthly series of online presentations that appear live via zoom and are then recorded and posted to youtube for later viewing. Attendance on zoom ranges from 100 to 400, while several of the youtube records have received thousands of views.
$91,169 spent13% of program spendingExhibits and awardsthe center prepares and manages several photography exhibitions that travel to museums and other venues across the country where they are made available to the public. With the 2024 accession of the kalmbach art collection, the center prepared an exhibition about it that debuted in 2025 at the grohmann museum in milwaukee, wisconsin. Other exhibitions currently or recently in circulation include after promontory: 150 years of transcontinental railroading; beebe & clegg: their enduring photographic legacy; milwaukee's beer line; requiem for steam: the railroad photographs of david plowden; and wallace w. Abbey: a life in railroad photography. After promontory's winter 2024-2025 exhibition at the eiteljorg museum of american indians and western art in indianapolis led to a joint event between the museum and the center. The center's annual creative photography awards program recognizes creative photography and provides an important point of entry for engagement with contemporary photographers and new audiences. Named for principal founder john e. Gruber, the program seeks to recognize and encourage excellence in railroad imagery. The volunteer panel of three judges…
$75,088 spent11% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $709,727.
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 $307k to $603k (+97%).
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.
93% of CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (64% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 8 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
Scott Lothes
Exec. Director/president
Board chair
T Bondurant French
Chairman of the board
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 6 funders, grant income rose $200 → $52k.
4 of 13 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 96% 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: $870k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Center for Railroad Photography & Art Endowment). These are real filings, and they are not money CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC raised.
From the IRS filings of CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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
CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 71% of grant income and the top three 97%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
98% 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 CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 47% · 2019 67% · 2020 66% · 2021 99% · 2022 89% · 2023 61% — 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
29% of CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 46% 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
96% of CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC'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 $18k that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from funders outside Wisconsin, across 6 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $420k arriving through sponsors registered in 4 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
CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC has grown faster than half of the 17,936 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 17,936 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC
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 Wisconsin
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
74% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
70%
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
- Center for Railroad Photography and Art Endowment · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC: 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 CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC?
- CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC (Wisconsin) receives grants from 13 organizations whose IRS filings report $438,054 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($311,440). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 96% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC have?
- IRS filings report 13 organizations giving $438,054 in grants to CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC, 6 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $311,440 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CENTER FOR RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Wisconsin. 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 Center for Railroad Photography and Art →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 13 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