Colorado · Nonprofit
MUSEUM OF FRIENDS
MUSEUM OF FRIENDS (Colorado) receives grants from 12 organizations whose IRS filings report $368,054 to it, the largest being GATES FAMILY FOUNDATION ($85,500). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $200k
- Funders on record
- 12
- Grants received
- $368k
- Net assets
- $926k
What Museum of Friends does
Mission
The Museum of Friends (mof), mission is to honor the artists who have freely given art to the museum's founders, establishing its collection. We foster open inquiry toward cultural education through exhibitions, public and educational programs, and a public art reference library, alongside our permanent collection. We pledge to serve colorado as a cultural resource, creating opportunities for the underserved, underrepresented, and under- resourced community of huerfano county.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
The museum's "school tour program" is offered to local and neighboring area schools for classes pre-k through high school. The program is planned with teachers who use the museum's collections for curriculum planning goals. The tour is followed by either an art, writing or physical self-expression activity. The program offers in-depth learning of either a steam or social and emotional learning for pre-k through 12; adult and older adult public programs. In 2024 a total of 360 children participated in the school-tour program and the friday art lab.
$3,245 spent$1,871 earned by the program2% of program spendingExhibitions and public programs 2024 the number of adult visitors for changing exhibitions guided and self-guided tours numbered approximately 2936. The current programs are: the permanent collection of contemporary art with 4000 works - paintings, prints, sculptures photographs on the 2nd floor and now accessible with an elevator; changing exhibitions on the ground and 2nd floor; the current program for adults working on their sobriety "creative visualization, meditation and art" is supported by the 3rd judicial district drug court.
$193,626 spent98% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $196,871.
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 $983k to $1.2M (+19%).
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 5% · 2018 42% · 2019 25% · 2020 40% · 2021 57% · 2022 52% · 2023 62% · 2024 0%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
95% of MUSEUM OF FRIENDS’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (64% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 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.
Board chair
Jeff Shaw
Board chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 4 funders, grant income rose $10k → $46k.
3 of 12 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 22% 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 MUSEUM OF FRIENDS’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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 FRIENDS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 23% 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
60% 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 FRIENDS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2019 50% · 2020 24% · 2021 91% · 2022 42% · 2023 67% — 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
29% of MUSEUM OF FRIENDS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 67% 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
93% of MUSEUM OF FRIENDS's grant income comes from Colorado funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $80k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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 FRIENDS is better cushioned than half of the 17,936 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 17,936 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like MUSEUM OF FRIENDS
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 Colorado
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
93% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
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 MUSEUM OF FRIENDS: 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 FRIENDS?
- MUSEUM OF FRIENDS (Colorado) receives grants from 12 organizations whose IRS filings report $368,054 to it, the largest being GATES FAMILY FOUNDATION ($85,500). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does MUSEUM OF FRIENDS have?
- IRS filings report 12 organizations giving $368,054 in grants to MUSEUM OF FRIENDS, 8 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of MUSEUM OF FRIENDS?
- GATES FAMILY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $85,500 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like MUSEUM OF FRIENDS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Colorado. 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 Friends →
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 12 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