Virginia · Nonprofit
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Virginia) receives grants from 415 organizations whose IRS filings report $65,864,998 to it, the largest being CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($11,130,500). 285 of them have funded it in more than one year.
Against its field
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 54 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 54 arts & culture nonprofits over $100M, FY2024
Three funders worth looking at
Grantmakers with no record of funding this organization, ranked by how strongly the co-funder graph and the mission embeddings agree. The evidence is in section 03.
- Give Lively Foundation Incshared funders
- The Jefferson Legacy Foundation Sydney N Stokes Jr Chairmanportfolio match
- Florence Gould Foundationportfolio match
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.
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 1% · 2018 1% · 2020 1% · 2021 7% · 2022 1% · 2023 1% · 2024 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
35% of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (55% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 127 funders to 190 funders, grant income rose $3.8M → $13M.
34 of 415 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 40% 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: $2.5M from 23 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Silicon Valley Community Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money Colonial Williamsburg Foundation raised.
From the IRS filings of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 415 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
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 17% 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
42% 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 Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 27% · 2018 19% · 2019 27% · 2020 21% · 2021 36% · 2022 39% · 2023 19% — 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
50% of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 69% 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
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation draws 73% of its grant income from funders outside Virginia, across 40 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $26M arriving through sponsors registered in 20 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.
Funders to approach
Grantmakers that don’t fund you yet, surfaced two ways: they back organizations that share your funders, or their grantees resemble your mission. The ones both signals agree on come first. Your 415 funders put you under-funded among the 400 organizations that share them.
- Give Lively Foundation Incshared fundersNY · backs 212 organizations that share your funders
- The Jefferson Legacy Foundation Sydney N Stokes Jr Chairmanportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Florence Gould Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Tisbest Philanthropyshared fundersWA · backs 122 organizations that share your funders
- Deloitte Foundationshared fundersCT · backs 63 organizations that share your funders
- Kpmg US Foundation Incshared fundersNJ · backs 92 organizations that share your funders
- American Chemical Societyshared fundersDC · backs 57 organizations that share your funders
- Ernst & Young Foundationshared fundersNY · backs 119 organizations that share your funders
- Givinga Foundation Incshared fundersMA · backs 102 organizations that share your funders
- The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New Yorkshared fundersNY · backs 78 organizations that share your funders
- Yale Universityshared fundersCT · backs 60 organizations that share your funders
- President and Fellows of Harvard Collegeshared fundersMA · backs 67 organizations that share your funders
From the co-funder graph (funders backing at least two comparable organizations, shrunk for grantee count, donor-advised and mega-funds excluded) and the universe embeddings. A research starting point; overlap is association, not a guarantee of fit.
Government funding Colonial Williamsburg Foundation receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.6M on record.
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$1.3M
- National Endowment for the Humanities$348k
- Department of Justice$11k
- Department of Defense$6k
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 Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Nonprofits whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over the universe of US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Virginia
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
72% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
76%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 38 states
Part of a family of 5 related entities
- Charltons Coffeehouse LLC · disregarded
- Colonial Williamsburg Company · corp_trust
- Williamsburg Developments Inc · corp_trust
- Nancy B Spillane CRUT · corp_trust
- Kathryn Mae Renner CRT · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation: 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. How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Colonial Williamsburg Foundation?
- Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Virginia) receives grants from 415 organizations whose IRS filings report $65,864,998 to it, the largest being CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($11,130,500). 285 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Colonial Williamsburg Foundation have?
- IRS filings report 415 organizations giving $65,864,998 in grants to Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 285 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation?
- CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $11,130,500 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Colonial Williamsburg Foundation find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Virginia. 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 FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 415funders 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 August 27, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing