Massachusetts · Nonprofit
NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC
NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC (Massachusetts) receives grants from 297 organizations whose IRS filings report $25,265,662 to it, the largest being THE KAPLEN BROTHERS FUND INC ($5,168,000). 199 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $14M
- Funders on record
- 297
- Grants received
- $25M
- Net assets
- $88M
What National Yiddish Book Center Inc does
Mission
The national yiddish book center (the "center") works to recover, celebrate, and regenerate yiddish and modern jewish literature and culture to advance a fuller understanding of jewish history and identity. The center engages diverse, worldwide audiences, generating enthusiasm, knowledge, and commitment to the history and future of yiddish and jewish culture. These goals are furthered through a range of innovative educational and cultural programs, digital initiatives, and strategic partnerships. Books are recovered from across the globe and lead ground-breaking digital collections projects including the universal yiddish library to make all yiddish books accessible through a single online portal. Educational programs serve high school students, college students, teachers, and adults. Translators are trained and publication of new english language translations are done through white goat press, the center's book imprint, and pakn treger, an english language magazine.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Cultural rescue and preservation - the center has placed the full content of more than 13,000 titles online through the non-profit internet archive, making yiddish literature the single most accessible literature in history. The books have been downloaded for free more than 2 million times. The center has partnered with the national library of israel, yivo, and the new york public library to create the universal yiddish library. For the first time, more than 60,000 yiddish titles are searchable in an online catalog. The center also collects oral histories through its wexler oral history project. Now a growing collection of more than 1,500 interviews, these are available on the center's website and on youtube for scholars, teachers, and others. The oral history project also creates short films based on the interviews collected. The center continues to rescue yiddish books and distributes these books to libraries, scholars, and students. These materials are also available free of charge online.
$1,852,807 spent$3,054 earned by the program28% of program spendingVisitor and public programs - welcomes visitors and offers permanent and traveling exhibitions and interpretive tours. The center offers virtual public programs which stream live every thursday on zoom and facebook live to audiences of 500-1000 per program. A new permanent core exhibition, yiddish: a global culture, opened in 2023. The center also hosts traveling and temporary exhibitions. On site public programs include, lectures, films, and the annual yidstock: the festival of new yiddish music.
$1,679,343 spent$316,235 earned by the program25% of program spendingEducation the center offers several major educational programs for undergraduates and recent college graduates. The 7-week steiner summer program includes 18 students who study yiddish language and modern jewish history and culture. The fellowship program for college graduates is a 12-month program for recent graduates who participate in a variety of experiential learning projects including book digitization, oral history, exhibit development, on-site and online course development, and the center's english language magazine, pakn treger. The great jewish books program is offered to high school students who spend one week engaged in an intense exploration of jewish literature. The center's newest program for teachers, "paper bridges: teaching the holocaust through yiddish literature," launched in summer 2025 and included 12 teachers from across the united states. Yiddish school, a weeklong residential yiddish program for adults takes place every spring and online yiddish classes are offered annually. The center created a new beginning yiddish language textbook which was published in summer 2020 and has sold more than 4000 copies. Based on this textbook, the center trains, mentors,…
$2,232,349 spentof which $18,512 as grants$2,552,765 earned by the program33% of program spendingTranslation and publications - the center publishes and distributes an english language magazine, pakn treger, which enhances its educational outreach. The magazine is sent to more than 20,000 members and friends. White goat press is the center's publishing imprint with a mission of bringing new yiddish literature to english readers and has published 25 titles to date. The center has a translation fellowship program for aspiring yiddish translators and has trained more than 100 translators to date. The center also regularly publishes new content on its website and distributes this content through email and social media. The center's e-publication, "the weekly reader" connects audiences to articles, interviews, podcasts and more from the center's digital collections.
$905,167 spentof which $60,234 as grants$6,777 earned by the program14% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $6,669,666.
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 2024 to 2025, from $80M to $89M (+11%).
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: 2021 17%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
87% of NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (58% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 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.
Board chair
Ira J Wagner
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 88 funders to 135 funders, grant income rose $1.4M → $2.9M.
33 of 297 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 40% 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 NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 297 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
NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 20% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left
41% 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 NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 26% · 2018 24% · 2019 29% · 2020 39% · 2021 26% · 2022 35% · 2023 28% — 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
49% of NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC'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
NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC draws 98% of its grant income from funders outside Massachusetts, across 31 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $10M arriving through sponsors registered in 18 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
NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 570 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 570 arts & culture nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.4M on record — $1.3M federal, $33k state.
- National Endowment for the Humanities$1.3M
- (PP) STATE AID/POL SUB$33k
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 NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER 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 Massachusetts
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
71% 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 37 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER 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 NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC?
- NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC (Massachusetts) receives grants from 297 organizations whose IRS filings report $25,265,662 to it, the largest being THE KAPLEN BROTHERS FUND INC ($5,168,000). 199 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC have?
- IRS filings report 297 organizations giving $25,265,662 in grants to NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC, 199 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC?
- THE KAPLEN BROTHERS FUND INC is the largest funder on record, with $5,168,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC 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 National Yiddish Book Center →
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 297 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