Missouri · Nonprofit
CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS
CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS (Missouri) receives grants from 71 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,667,478 to it, the largest being REGIONAL CULTURAL AND PERFORMING ARTS DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION ($1,173,826). 49 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.6M
- Funders on record
- 71
- Grants received
- $6.7M
- Net assets
- $30M
What Contemporary Art Museum St Louis does
Mission
Contemporary art museum st. Louis promotes meaningful engagement with the most relevant and innovative art being made today.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Exhibition programs: the contemporary art museum st. Louis (cam), a non-collecting institution, is internationally recognized for exhibitions of the most provocative, insightful, and relevant contemporary art being made today. In fy25, cam presented exhibitions of prescient and seminal work by emerging and established artists, working with varied media including painting, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, assemblage, installation, and video. Cam presented the ceramic works of shinichi sawada (an exhibition co-organized by the mint museum in partnership with the mint museum in charlotte, nc), the work of local artists saj issa, basil kincaid, and ronald young in the eleventh edition of great rivers biennial, a new mural by ad minoliti, a new video work by renowned artist charles atlas, the group exhibition like water which featured artists jamal cyrus, simone fattal, dionne lee, candice lin, beatriz santiago muoz, and vivian suter. Alongside its exhibitions, cam produces scholarly exhibition catalogs: an illustrated, full color book including texts and interpretive essays. Cam co-published a catalog along with the mint museum for the shinichi sawada exhibition. The museum continued…
$1,732,744 spent65% of program spendingPublic programs: in conjunction with its exhibitions, cam delivers art education to people of all ages by presenting a diverse line-up of public programs that include artist and curator lectures; art-inspired dinners; film screenings; and unique workshops for families with young children. Cam's public programs were held onsite throughout fy25 and included artist talks, panel discussions, music and dance performances, and hands-on art instruction for elementary students, teens, and seniors. In fy25, cam hosted 200 programs and tours, of which 99% were free.
$287,564 spent$1,125 earned by the program11% of program spendingEducation programs: cam remains dedicated to fostering creativity and increasing access to the arts for the young people of st. Louis through free arts education initiatives. These include pre-professional training in new art in the neighborhood (cam's longest running education program at 30+ years); an opportunity to organize an exhibition from start to finish in teen museum studies; advanced studio art training with an emphasis on collaboration for middle schoolers in the leap middle school initiative; and in-school and off-site community engagement activities under the artreach program. Cam is proud of the meaningful ways its programs make a difference to st. Louis youth, and each season presents the work of young artists in the education galleries. In fy25, works were shown by students participating in new art in the neighborhood, leap middle school initiative, and the artreach partnership. Teen museum studies presented an exhibition by the local artist glyneisha who created an installation of artworks, furniture, and sentimental items from her family home within the museum. In fy25, the museum served 3,066 youth from the greater st. Louis area.
$654,452 spent$283 earned by the program24% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,674,760.
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 2022 to 2023, from $20M to $29M (+40%).
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 6% · 2018 5% · 2019 9% · 2020 4% · 2021 15% · 2022 24% · 2023 3% · 2024 10% · 2025 10%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
77% of CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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
Lisa Melandri
Executive director
Board chair
Paul Cambridge
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 13 funders to 35 funders, grant income rose $249k → $1.2M.
9 of 71 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 15% 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: $657k from 7 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest St Louis Community Foundation Inc). These are real filings, and they are not money CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS raised.
From the IRS filings of CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 71 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
CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 18% 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
35% 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 CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 50% · 2018 56% · 2019 53% · 2020 26% · 2021 29% · 2022 26% · 2023 17% — 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
59% of CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS'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
84% of CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS's grant income comes from Missouri funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.0M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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
CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS's funding base is broadening — from 13 funders to 35 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,430 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $729k on record.
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$381k
- National Endowment for the Arts$348k
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 CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS
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 Missouri
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
68%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS: 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 CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS?
- CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS (Missouri) receives grants from 71 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,667,478 to it, the largest being REGIONAL CULTURAL AND PERFORMING ARTS DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION ($1,173,826). 49 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS have?
- IRS filings report 71 organizations giving $6,667,478 in grants to CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS, 49 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS?
- REGIONAL CULTURAL AND PERFORMING ARTS DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION is the largest funder on record, with $1,173,826 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Missouri. 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 Contemporary Art Museum St Louis →
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 71 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