Wisconsin · Nonprofit
MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC
MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC (Wisconsin) receives grants from 57 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,397,617 to it, the largest being MADISON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($1,821,463). 41 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 63% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $6.8M
- Funders on record
- 57
- Grants received
- $4.4M
- Net assets
- $7.0M
What Madison Symphony Orchestra Inc does
Mission
To sponsor, develop, and promote programs of musical excellence for the people of madison and the surrounding area, and to provide music education.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Subscription, organ, and at the movie concerts - 31 performances in order to promote musical excellence in the community with 35,276 concert attendees for the year ending 06/30/2025
$4,926,451 spent$2,346,810 earned by the program89% of program spendingEducational concerts provided for the community. For the year ending 06/30/2025, there were 8 full orchestra concerts and 150 small ensemble concerts. Educational programs have a wide range of audiences. Symphony soup: symphony soup is a special way for students in kindergarten through third grade to learn about classical music through the experience of a live symphony concert. Symphony soup conveys the way ingredients, spices, and flavors combine in a delicious bowl of soup, just as musical instruments come together to create beautiful music that can lift and refresh the soul. Link up: link up is a music education program created by carnegie hall's weill music institute that gives students in grades 3-5 the opportunity to explore music through a yearlong curriculum of classroom activities during which they learn to play the soprano recorder. A culminating concert brings the students into overture's capitol theater to perform with the mso! Fall youth concerts: an all-american program of live music for middle and high school students with real-time illustrations featuring local artist and professional illustrator t.l. Luke. Young people's concerts: the mso's spring young people's…
$590,882 spentof which $205,175 as grants$35,004 earned by the program11% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $5,517,333.
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 $7.5M to $8.1M (+9%).
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% · 2019 0% · 2020 1% · 2021 45% · 2022 24% · 2023 0% · 2024 1% · 2025 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
64% of MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 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. 1 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
Robert Reed
Executive director
Board chair
Michael P Richman
Chair
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 17 funders to 32 funders, grant income rose $130k → $659k.
13 of 57 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 63% 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: $5.2M from 2 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Madison Symphony Orchestra Foundation Inc). These are real filings, and they are not money MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC raised.
From the IRS filings of MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 57 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
MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 41% of grant income and the top three 57%; half comes from just 3 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
66% 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 MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 19% · 2018 14% · 2019 56% · 2020 56% · 2021 51% · 2022 52% · 2023 45% — 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
67% of MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 72% 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
63% of MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 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 $1.6M that is directly attributable, 79% of it comes from Wisconsin funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.8M 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
MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC is better cushioned than half of the 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $191k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$191k
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 MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 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 Wisconsin
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
82% 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
- Madison Symphony Orchestra Foundation · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 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 MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC?
- MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC (Wisconsin) receives grants from 57 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,397,617 to it, the largest being MADISON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($1,821,463). 41 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 63% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC have?
- IRS filings report 57 organizations giving $4,397,617 in grants to MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC, 41 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC?
- MADISON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,821,463 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Wisconsin. 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 57 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