Vermont · Nonprofit
FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC
FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC (Vermont) receives grants from 45 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,907,811 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($1,016,889). 25 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 71% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $3.3M
- Funders on record
- 45
- Grants received
- $3.9M
- Net assets
- $17M
What Friends of Hildene Inc does
Mission
The mission of the friends of hildene, inc. Is "values into action". Our core values are "integrity, perseverence, and civic responsibility". Our key actions are "preservation, land conservation, sustainability and civil civic discourse".
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Each year hildene's staff and volunteers welcome thousands of guests to the lincoln home, grounds and walking trails. Hildene's open land and restored buildings best serve the public as an educational and cultural resource, and as a memorial to the lincoln family.
$2,499,288 spent$799,838 earned by the program100% of program spendingHistorical preservation of 412 acres and fourteen historic buildings, including a forest management plan that emphasizes sustainability over short-term profit, such as removal of invasive species and selective cutting to ensure the longer-term goal of higher quality, aesthetically pleasing vermont forest. Trees are harvested and run through a portable saw mill to produce lumber to construct buildings. Cut wood is also used to feed wood-burning furnaces to efficiently heat many of the buildings.
Public education is an integral part of the hildene mission, including a lincoln lecture series, a library and research center, a lincoln essay competition, book publishing, the rowland agricultural center at which staff milks goats and makes cheese, plus a second agricultural operation at dene farm with alpacas, cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens and rabbits, a collaboration with the local high school involving dozens of students taking classes at dene farm every day during the school year and the lowerre family youth education center which is home to children's education programs that teach history, natural science and agriculture.
Miscellaneous program service activities
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,499,288.
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 2023 to 2024, from $19M to $22M (+17%).
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: 2021 13%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
71% of FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC’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. 3 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.
Board chair
Robert Hallenbeck
Chairman
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 11 funders to 24 funders, grant income rose $261k → $1.6M.
13 of 45 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 71% 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 FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 45 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
FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 26% of grant income and the top three 58%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
78% 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 FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 33% · 2018 40% · 2019 49% · 2020 44% · 2021 47% · 2022 41% · 2023 63% — growing more concentrated.
“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 FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 56% 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
71% of FRIENDS OF HILDENE 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 $1.1M that is directly attributable, 77% of it comes from funders outside Vermont, across 12 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.8M 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
FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC's revenue grew 35% between 2017 and 2024.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 5,127 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $404k on record.
- Grants$298k
- Other Grants$106k
- Instate Conf, Meetings, Etc$86
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 FRIENDS OF HILDENE 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 Vermont
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
75% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
98%
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 FRIENDS OF HILDENE 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 FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC?
- FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC (Vermont) receives grants from 45 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,907,811 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($1,016,889). 25 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 71% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC have?
- IRS filings report 45 organizations giving $3,907,811 in grants to FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC, 25 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $1,016,889 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like FRIENDS OF HILDENE INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Vermont. 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 Friends of Hildene →
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 45 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