Massachusetts · Nonprofit
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS (Massachusetts) receives grants from 311 organizations whose IRS filings report $98,881,609 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($46,399,771). 200 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 65% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $187M
- Funders on record
- 311
- Grants received
- $99M
- Net assets
- $1.4B
What Museum of Fine Arts does
Mission
The Museum of Fine Arts houses and preserves preeminent collections and aspires to serve a wide variety of people through direct encounters with works of art in order to encourage inquiry and to heighten public understanding and appreciation of the visual world.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Education programs: the museum maintains an ongoing series of education programs and activities in order to further the mission of the museum and provide educational opportunities in art. Education programs cover a wide spectrum of topics and include studio art classes and workshops for children, teens and adults, lectures, films, concerts, a variety of other courses, free demonstrations and talks, free workshops for educators, school group tours, partnerships with local area schools, after-school programs and community groups to engage youth in arts and programs for family visits to the museum.
$20,176,895 spent$1,991,413 earned by the program24% of program spendingExhibitions: with a collection of nearly 500,000 objects, the museum owns some of the rare and important artistic treasures in the world. Such a collection enables the museum to present many special exhibitions with a balance between scholarly programs and those with broad public appeal. During fiscal year 2025, the museum presented 20 exhibitions. Some highlights include: dali: disruption and devotion; georgia o'keeffe and henry moore; power of the people: art and democracy; deep waters: four artists and the sea; the sun will set: contemporary abstraction and the body; fragments of self: smfa at tufts juried student exhibition; utopia, dystopia: tony cokes and oscar munoz; curated by teens death as a constant companion, a collaboration between mfa teen programs and the center for netherlandish art; landscape and labor: dutch works on paper in van gogh's time; robert frank: mary's book; witnessing humanity: the art of john wilson; van gogh: the roulin family portraits; qi baishi: inspiration in ink; the visionary art of minnie evans; fy25 community arts initiative: into the forest; fabric of a nation: american quilt stories at nashville, tn; dutch art in global age at fort worth,…
$17,165,542 spent$2,294,826 earned by the program21% of program spendingEnterprise: the museum's retail operations offers a wide variety of merchandise related to the museum's collections and special exhibitions, which contribute importantly to the achievement of the museum's exempt educational purpose by making works of art familiar to a broader segment of the public. Offerings at shop include art books, posters, cards, glass, textiles, jewelry and sculpture. Merchandise is for sale in the physical shops or through retail's web-based outlet.the museum is exempt as an educational organization on the basis of its ownership, maintenance, and exhibition for public viewing of works of art. The sales of such items contributes importantly to the achievement of the museum's exempt educational purposes by stimulating and enhancing public awareness, interest, and appreciation of art. Moreover, a broader segment of the public may be encouraged to visit the museum itself to share in its educational functions and programs as a result of seeing the items sold.
$2,156,194 spent$3,173,176 earned by the program3% of program spendingOperating support: expenses: $24,009,233 revenue: $0operating support consists of all other areas of the museum. Including protective services, facilities and other areas which support the operations of the museum and its mission.parking facilities: expenses: $1,304,091 revenue: $4,877,518the museum owns a parking garage and has two open-air parking lots. All of these facilities are open to members and visitors to the museum. The operation of adjacent parking lots by the museum, in areas of insufficient parking spaces for the use of its visitors, contributes importantly to the museum's exempt purpose by encouraging visitation and longer periods viewing of its collections, and special exhibitions. Any profits from the fee charged for the use of the lot is placed in the general operating fund.food services: expenses: $154,800 revenue: $1,914,669the museum is organized and operated as an art museum. The eating facilities which are contracted and managed by ra, are open to the museum staff, employees, and members of the public visiting the museum and are of a size commensurate with accommodation of these special groups of patrons.membership & visitors: expenses: $4,545,440 revenue:…
$43,311,256 spent$25,272,345 earned by the program52% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $82,809,887.
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 $1.2B to $1.4B (+16%).
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 0% · 2018 0% · 2019 0% · 2020 0% · 2021 0% · 2022 7% · 2023 0% · 2024 0% · 2025 0%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
52% of MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (56% 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 85 funders to 131 funders, grant income fell $6.4M → $6.2M.
24 of 311 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 65% 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: $7.8M from 5 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Boston Foundation Inc). These are real filings, and they are not money MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS raised.
From the IRS filings of MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 311 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
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS leans on a few funders — its largest provides 47% of grant income and the top three 64%; 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 MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 40% · 2018 55% · 2019 33% · 2020 53% · 2021 73% · 2022 45% · 2023 46% — 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
48% of MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 64% 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
65% of MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS'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 $34M that is directly attributable, 63% of it comes from Massachusetts funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $65M arriving through sponsors registered in 14 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
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 43 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 43 arts & culture nonprofits over $100M, FY2025
Government funding MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.5M on record — $670k federal, $794k state.
- National Endowment for the Humanities$400k
- National Endowment for the Arts$270k
- (PP) STATE AID/POL SUB$793k
- (EE) ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES$200
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 MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
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 Massachusetts
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
59% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
72%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 2 states
Part of a family of 4 related entities
- Museum Enterprise Partners Inc · corp_trust
- Charitable Remainder Unitrust · corp_trust
- Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust · corp_trust
- Perpetual Trust · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS: 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 MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS?
- MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS (Massachusetts) receives grants from 311 organizations whose IRS filings report $98,881,609 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($46,399,771). 200 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 65% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS have?
- IRS filings report 311 organizations giving $98,881,609 in grants to MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, 200 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $46,399,771 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Massachusetts. 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 Museum of Fine Arts →
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 311 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