California · Nonprofit
Monterey Jazz Festival
Monterey Jazz Festival (California) receives grants from 34 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,643,372 to it, the largest being The David and Lucile Packard Foundation ($655,000). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $4.2M
- Funders on record
- 34
- Grants received
- $2.6M
- Net assets
- $2.6M
What Monterey Jazz Festival does
Mission
The Monterey Jazz Festival's mission is to inspire the discovery and celebration of jazz, anchored by an iconic festival.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Monterey Jazz Festival - The nonprofit Monterey Jazz Festival is the longest continuously-running jazz festival in the world, and has presented nearly every major jazz artist every year since its inception in 1958. Held annually on the 20-acre Monterey County Fairgrounds, the Festival is considered an international icon and model for all subsequent multi-stage music festivals. Five-hundred top jazz artists perform throughout the weekend on eight stages over three nights and two days each third full weekend in September. Every year, through its marketing and promotional efforts, the Festival gathers over 60 million impressions in local, national, and international print and digital media outlets, on the ground, and through its web site.
$3,911,147 spent$2,979,123 earned by the program88% of program spendingThe Festival provides 3,000+ young people with direct access to the nationally recognized jazz musicians and music instructors. These programs fill an educational gap in our schools underfunded music programs and provide mentorship and performance opportunities to foster creativity for the next generation's jazz musicians. The education programs include: the MJF Regional All Star Band and Vocal Ensemble, MJF All Star Middle School Combo, Summer Jazz Camp, Jazz Uplifts!, master classes and workshops, and an instrument bank & sheet music library. National programs include the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra and the Next Generation Women in Jazz Combo as well as our HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Partnership Program, which brings students from HBCUs throughout the U.S. to Monterey to provide career and performance opportunities.
$547,850 spent$56,854 earned by the program12% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $4,458,997.
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 2020 to 2021, from $2.4M to $3.6M (+52%).
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 1% · 2020 24% · 2021 46% · 2022 10% · 2023 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
22% of Monterey Jazz Festival’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 10 funders to 8 funders, grant income rose $201k → $213k.
9 of 34 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 29% 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 Monterey Jazz Festival’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 34 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
Monterey Jazz Festival has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 25% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 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 Monterey Jazz Festival.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 35% · 2018 40% · 2019 45% · 2020 60% · 2021 31% · 2022 58% · 2023 44% — 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
45% of Monterey Jazz Festival's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 62% 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
98% of Monterey Jazz Festival's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $773k arriving through sponsors registered in 7 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
Monterey Jazz Festival's funding has concentrated — grant income rose while the number of funders held roughly flat.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 5,127 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding Monterey Jazz Festival receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $375k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$375k
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 Monterey Jazz Festival
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 California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
90% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
84%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Monterey Jazz Festival: 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 Monterey Jazz Festival?
- Monterey Jazz Festival (California) receives grants from 34 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,643,372 to it, the largest being The David and Lucile Packard Foundation ($655,000). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Monterey Jazz Festival have?
- IRS filings report 34 organizations giving $2,643,372 in grants to Monterey Jazz Festival, 21 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Monterey Jazz Festival?
- The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $655,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Monterey Jazz Festival find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. 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 Monterey Jazz Festival →
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 34 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