New Hampshire · Nonprofit
Friends of The Music Hall
Friends of The Music Hall (New Hampshire) receives grants from 49 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,311,515 to it, the largest being New Hampshire Charitable Foundation ($1,731,838). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 70% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $13M
- Funders on record
- 49
- Grants received
- $4.3M
- Net assets
- $15M
What Friends of The Music Hall does
Mission
The Music Hall (TMH) is a community-supported, nonprofit live entertainment venue with acclaimed film, music, theater, literary, and dance performances in two theaters in downtown Portsmouth, NH. Its 900-seat Historic Theater, built in 1878, is the oldest in New Hampshire. Its second venue, built in 2011 and renovated in 2022, is The Lounge, a modern 116-seat cabaret seated venue. In addition to presenting diverse and relevant programming, TMH hosts community fundraisers and celebrations and partners with more than 60 local nonprofits. In a typical year, TMH offers 52 weeks of programming (600 events), engages over 120,000 patrons in the arts and learning, and contributes more than $15 million to the local economy through show- and visitor-related spending (according to the Americans for the Arts "Arts and Economic Prosperity" 2022-2023 survey).
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
To provide a facility for performing arts organizations and present theater, music, dance, and films for the cultural enrichment of the community.
$7,052,239 spent$6,757,008 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $7,052,239.
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 2024 to 2025, from $15M to $21M (+43%).
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 0% · 2019 0% · 2021 43% · 2022 49% · 2023 0% · 2024 0% · 2025 0%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
44% of Friends of The Music Hall’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (58% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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
Tina Sawtelle
Executive Director
Board chair
Jay McFarland
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2018 and FY2019, and between the FY2020 and FY2021 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 9 funders to 22 funders, grant income rose $340k → $412k.
11 of 49 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 70% 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 The Music Hall’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 49 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 The Music Hall leans on a few funders — its largest provides 40% of grant income and the top three 67%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
71% 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 The Music Hall.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 72% · 2018 55% · 2019 59% · 2020 48% · 2021 47% · 2022 36% · 2023 31% — 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
48% of Friends of The Music Hall's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 59% 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
70% of Friends of The Music Hall'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 $1.3M that is directly attributable, 78% of it comes from funders outside New Hampshire, across 12 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $3.0M arriving through sponsors registered in 10 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 The Music Hall runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 550 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 550 arts & culture nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Organizations like Friends of The Music Hall
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 New Hampshire
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
89%
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
- Music Hall Holdings LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Friends of The Music Hall: 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 The Music Hall?
- Friends of The Music Hall (New Hampshire) receives grants from 49 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,311,515 to it, the largest being New Hampshire Charitable Foundation ($1,731,838). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 70% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Friends of The Music Hall have?
- IRS filings report 49 organizations giving $4,311,515 in grants to Friends of The Music Hall, 29 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Friends of The Music Hall?
- New Hampshire Charitable Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $1,731,838 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Friends of The Music Hall find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in New Hampshire. 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 FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 49 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