North Carolina · Nonprofit
MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM
MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM (North Carolina) receives grants from 59 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,097,468 to it, the largest being JOHN REX ENDOWMENT ($1,136,530). 37 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $13M
- Funders on record
- 59
- Grants received
- $4.1M
- Net assets
- $30M
What Marbles Kids Museum does
Mission
See schedule omarbles sparks imagination, discovery and learning through play. 1. Ready set learn. Play builds intellectual, social and emotional skills for success in learning and in life. 2. Be healthy be active. Play promotes physical development and health. 3. Create innovate. Play encourages imagination, creativity and self-expression. 4. Explore experiment. Play leads to discovery and kindles curiosity. 5. Connect. Play teaches cooperation and collaboration, strengthens families and unites our community.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
In fy2024-2025 (fy25), marbles welcomed almost 544,000 visitors from all 50 states, 98 north carolina counties and every corner of wake county to experience the power of play. Highlights include opening the marbles playway, a joyful community space that brings kids and families together to connect with nature and each other. This colorful urban oasis welcomes marbles guests and downtown visitors alike to an accessible, free-to-all destination in the heart of raleigh. Marbles in-house exhibits team designed, fabricated and installed two custom climbing structures a dragonfly and a bee to encourage kids to keep their bodies and imaginations active. Continued on schedule othe marbles playway earned two honors for its impact on downtown raleigh a 2025 dra imprint award and the sir walter raleigh award for community appearance. Marbles also successfully concluded our first-ever capital campaign, bigger play, brighter futures, with more than $9.1 million raised. With campaign funds, marbles will add new indoor and outdoor exhibits, enhance guest amenities and launch the marbles impact fund to support future sustainability. In support of our mission to spark imagination, discovery, and…
$5,346,312 spentof which $6,300 as grants$4,622,174 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $5,346,312.
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.
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 $10.0M to $31M (+211%).
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 13% · 2018 14% · 2019 12% · 2020 17% · 2021 20% · 2022 44% · 2023 9% · 2024 10% · 2025 10%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
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
Jonathan Frederick
CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 8 funders to 22 funders, grant income fell $426k → $299k.
11 of 59 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 25% 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: $561k from 5 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest North Carolina Community Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM raised.
From the IRS filings of MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 59 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
MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 28% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
37% 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 MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 83% · 2018 75% · 2019 63% · 2020 16% · 2021 24% · 2022 59% · 2023 34% — 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
52% of MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 63% 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
83% of MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM's grant income comes from North Carolina 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 11 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 MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $894k on record.
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$894k
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 MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM
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 North Carolina
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
66% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
99%
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 MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM: 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 MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM?
- MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM (North Carolina) receives grants from 59 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,097,468 to it, the largest being JOHN REX ENDOWMENT ($1,136,530). 37 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM have?
- IRS filings report 59 organizations giving $4,097,468 in grants to MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM, 37 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM?
- JOHN REX ENDOWMENT is the largest funder on record, with $1,136,530 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like MARBLES KIDS MUSEUM find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in North Carolina. 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 Marbles Kids Museum →
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 59 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