Oregon · Nonprofit
OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY
OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY (Oregon) receives grants from 81 organizations whose IRS filings report $11,609,550 to it, the largest being THE OREGON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($4,500,811). 59 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 56% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $11M
- Funders on record
- 81
- Grants received
- $12M
- Net assets
- $47M
What Oregon Historical Society does
Mission
The Oregon Historical Society (ohs) preserves our state's history and makes it accessible to everyone in ways that advance knowledge and inspire curiosity about all the people, places, and events that have shaped oregon.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Exhibitions: the Oregon Historical Society shares oregon and broader american history through original and traveling exhibitions. Designed to make history visible and accessible for all ages, ohs's museum features three permanent installations - including the award-winning exhibition experience oregon - that highlight objects and archival materials from ohs's collections. The museum preserves thousands of objects, textiles, artworks, and belongings, many which can be accessed online through the museum collection portal. Continued on schedule o.in 2025, ohs opened the yasui family: an american story. Through photographs, personal journals, documents, and objects, the exhibition explores how one japanese american family's story reflects the complexity of the american story. While yasui family members endured racism and incarceration, they also shared a commitment to equal justice through engagement with the local, state, and national forces that determined - and withheld - their civil rights. This exhibition was possible thanks to a recent grant project to digitize and translate items from the yasui brothers co. Business records and yasui family papers, both preserved in ohs's…
$4,016,328 spent$580,273 earned by the program43% of program spendingResearch library: the Oregon Historical Society's research library is an invaluable resource for learning about the past and providing context on the present. The library preserves the world's largest collection of oregon-related materials, documenting the people, places, and events that have shaped oregon's history. Visitors can enjoy broad access to these materials, both in the library's renovated reading room and online through ohs's digital collections and digital history resources.continued on schedule o.these collections broaden and enrich the understanding and interpretation of the cultural, political, religious, social, economic, scientific, and technological life in oregon. The research library online catalog is the primary point of discovery for researchers seeking to use its holdings. Archival collections are also described in more detail in archives west, an online consortial resource for academic and research libraries in the pacific northwest and mountain states. The library's digital archive, ohs digital collections, provides direct online access worldwide to a selection of ohs's library materials. A robust suite of digital history websites, including the oregon…
$3,544,166 spent$19,560 earned by the program38% of program spendingEducational programs: ohs helps bring diverse, complex history to students and educators by providing free educational materials and curriculum and by hosting professional-development workshops. Ohs sponsors oregon history day, part of national history day, a project-based research curriculum program for middle and high school students. Ohs's traveling trunks give students a hands-on way to explore history through objects, maps, and lesson plans on a variety of topics spanning oregon's vast geography and diverse peoples. Ohs also offers guided and self-guided exhibition tours, which are free for all oregon school groups. Continued on schedule o.guided by insight from groups of educational advisors from across the state, ohs continued to expand its resources for educators. In 2025, ohs hosted its first ethnic studies summer institute to help teachers prepare to teach the new ethnic studies standards and continued to grow resources such as classroom-ready lesson plans and the traveling trunk program. School tours in ohs's museum filled the calendar, and newly available bilingual tours in spanish and english were increasingly popular.ohs shares research and community knowledge with…
$1,778,782 spentof which $69,000 as grants$30,085 earned by the program19% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $9,339,276.
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 $35M to $39M (+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: 2017 44% · 2018 39% · 2019 52% · 2020 63% · 2021 63% · 2022 40% · 2023 49% · 2024 50% · 2025 48%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
85% of OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY’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. 3 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
Kerry Tymchuk
Executive director
Board chair
Peter Nickerson
Board president
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 23 funders to 49 funders, grant income rose $1.2M → $1.3M.
11 of 81 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 56% 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 OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 81 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
OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 39% 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
63% 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 OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 48% · 2018 44% · 2019 45% · 2020 56% · 2021 49% · 2022 30% · 2023 46% — broadly stable.
“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
58% of OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 73% 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
56% of OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY'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 $5.1M that is directly attributable, 73% of it comes from Oregon funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $6.6M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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
OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY holds deeper cash reserves 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 OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $8.1M on record — $488k federal, $7.6M state.
- National Archives and Records Administration$488k
- DISTRIBUTION TO OTHER GOVERNMENTS$6.3M
- DISTRIBUTION TO NON-PROFIT ORG$787k
- DISTRIBUTION TO NON-GOVERNMENTS$481k
- SUBSCRIPTIONS AND PUBLICATIONS$1k
- ADVERTISE, PUBLICITY, PUBLISH/PRINT SRVS$435
- EXPENDABLE PROPERTY NON-IT<$5K$204
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 OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY
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 Oregon
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
78% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
91%
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 OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY: 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 OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY?
- OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY (Oregon) receives grants from 81 organizations whose IRS filings report $11,609,550 to it, the largest being THE OREGON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($4,500,811). 59 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 56% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY have?
- IRS filings report 81 organizations giving $11,609,550 in grants to OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 59 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY?
- THE OREGON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $4,500,811 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Oregon. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
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 81 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