Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION
FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 13 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,236,729 to it, the largest being SAMUEL H KRESS FOUNDATION ($1,337,500). 9 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $1.8M
- Funders on record
- 13
- Grants received
- $2.2M
- Net assets
- $6.7M
What Foundation for Advancement in Conservation does
Mission
To undertake and underwrite programs and initiatives to advance the conservation profession in all its facets, to support conservation education and career development, and to apply the expertise of the profession in addressing the nation's artistic, cultural, and historic preservation priorities.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Outreach - the collections assessment for preservation (cap) program is administered by faic under a cooperative agreement with the institute of museum and library services (imls). Participating museums receive support for a general conservation assessment from a qualified collections assessor and a building assessor. The two assessors work collaboratively to provide institutions with recommendations for improved collections care. While no new assessments were awarded in 2025, many of the 70+ museums in the 2024 cohort completed their assessments in 2025.in 2014, faic began operating connecting to collections care, an online community and professional development resource for small and mid-sized museums, with funding from imls. This community offers an average of 12 free webinars and two low-cost courses per year. The program also supports a moderated forum with more than 3,800 subscribers that provides collections care guidance to museum staff.faic hosts the knowledge-sharing platform conservation online (cool), including the internationally global conservation forum (formerly known as the conservationdistlist) with over 11,000 subscribers.
$843,327 spentof which $18,915 as grants$11,272 earned by the program47% of program spendingProfessional development & education - workshops and educational sessions are a key part of faic's programs. In addition to offering workshops at the aic annual meeting, which draws 800+ attendees each year, faic produces professional development programs throughout the year at various locations. These events range from weeklong, lab-based workshops on specific treatment techniques to online programs on mentoring and preventive conservation topics. Faic created new curricula to fill gaps in training, including a series of online courses. In 2025, faic presented 14 in-person and online events that reached 795 individuals. Faic awarded $267,421 in professional development scholarships and post-graduate fellowships in 2025.
$524,047 spentof which $277,408 as grants$8,280 earned by the program29% of program spendingResearch and publications - faic publishes information of interest to the conservation and preservation communities on its web pages, such as survey results and other research. Faic videos on disaster response and other topics are made available through faic's learning portal and on the aic youtube account. Faic publishes the field guide to emergency response and the emergency response and salvage wheel, essential resources for collecting institutions after disasters. Faic administers the faic/samuel h kress conservation publication fellowships, which have resulted in at least 35 new publications since 1994. Faic also operates an oral history project, which documents the history of conservation through interviews.climate resilience and sustainabilityfaic developed climate resilience resources for cultural heritage, an online toolkit to help cultural organizations assess the impact of climate change on their site and improve their resiliency. The stich life cycle assessment project provides carbon impact data on common materials and activities of collecting institutions to help them reduce their environmental impact.
$318,179 spentof which $95,500 as grants$9,588 earned by the program18% of program spendingEmergency preparedness, response, & recovery - faic manages several emergency initiatives that support efforts in all phases of dealing with emergencies, from preparedness to response and recovery. An annual mayday campaign encourages collecting institutions to undertake emergency planning activities during the month of may. A team of more than 100 trained professionals, called the national heritage responders (nhr), provides expert assistance to institutions that experience damage from emergencies. The alliance for response (afr) program is a national initiative that develops and trains regional response teams that include cultural institutions and local emergency professionals in approximately 30 locations around the country. In 2025, faic staff worked with organizers in arizona and kansas to plan new regional afr networks. Faic provided training and networking webinars and microgrant opportunities for existing networks.
$94,880 spent5% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,780,433.
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.
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 $5.6M to $7.4M (+32%).
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 56% · 2019 40% · 2020 68% · 2021 58% · 2022 71% · 2023 69% · 2024 54%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 of the last 7 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
Lissa Rosenthal-Yoffe
Executive director
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 broadened from 1 funder to 6 funders, grant income rose $6k → $475k.
4 of 13 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 2% 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: $163k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works). These are real filings, and they are not money FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION raised.
From the IRS filings of FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION’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
FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION leans on a few funders — its largest provides 60% of grant income and the top three 93%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 100% · 2019 100% · 2020 55% · 2021 60% · 2022 50% · 2023 59% — 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
60% of FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION'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
FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION draws 100% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 6 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $55k 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.
Government funding FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $12.3M on record.
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$6.5M
- National Endowment for the Humanities$5.5M
- Department of the Interior$292k
- National Endowment for the Arts$20k
- Smithsonian Institution$10k
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 FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION
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 Washington, D.C.
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
81% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
87%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 28 states
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- American Institute for Conservation · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION: 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 FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION?
- FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 13 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,236,729 to it, the largest being SAMUEL H KRESS FOUNDATION ($1,337,500). 9 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION have?
- IRS filings report 13 organizations giving $2,236,729 in grants to FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION, 9 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION?
- SAMUEL H KRESS FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,337,500 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCEMENT IN CONSERVATION find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Washington, D.C.. 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 2018–2024), 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing