Texas · Nonprofit
PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE
PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE (Texas) receives grants from 130 organizations whose IRS filings report $37,022,790 to it, the largest being O'DONNELL FOUNDATION ($10,000,000). 82 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $103M
- Funders on record
- 130
- Grants received
- $37M
- Net assets
- $266M
What Perot Museum of Nature & Science does
Mission
To inspire minds through nature and science.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Opening december 1, 2012, the perot museum is a result of a successful $185 million capital campaign to unite three institutions (the dallas museum of natural history, the science place and the dallas children's museum) into one interactive building. With the mission to "inspire minds through nature and science," the museum provides a wide variety of activities including in-depth permanent exhibits, temporary exhibits, hands-on interactives, onsite school programs, school outreach programs, discovery camps, films and weekend activities for adults, children, and families. During fiscal year 2025, the museum served over 933,000 visitors through on-site visits, including over 110,000 students on 1,512 field trips. The traveling exhibit in fiscal year 2025 was bug lab.
$18,660,635 spent$13,828,728 earned by the program80% of program spendingThe museum is dedicated to inspiring children to pursue stem careers by providing engaging educational tools. The museum provides hands-on learning programs for school children that support the texas essential knowledge and skills (teks) standards. To ensure accessibility of perot museum programs, particularly to schools serving students on free or reduced lunch, the museum provides financial aid with funds contributed by individuals, corporations and foundations for this purpose. In fiscal year 2025, the museum served over 282,000 participants onsite and offsite through field trips, school programs, camps, and community outreach.
$3,430,685 spent$983,835 earned by the program15% of program spendingThe perot museum opened a new collections facility in march 2020, allowing the museum's collections to be consolidated into one, state-of-the-art facility. This facility provides ample lab and work spaces to support continued research of the collections. In addition, perot museum partners with local and regional organizations to conduct field research and fossil preservation.
$1,211,345 spent5% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $23,302,665.
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 $200M to $276M (+38%).
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 3% · 2019 3% · 2020 7% · 2021 25% · 2022 18% · 2023 7% · 2024 3% · 2025 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
84% of PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (55% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 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
Linda Abraham-Silver
Chief executive officer
Board chair
Nancy Best
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 36 funders to 56 funders, grant income rose $647k → $6.9M.
13 of 130 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 4% 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: $2.6M from 9 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest The Dallas Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE raised.
From the IRS filings of PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 130 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
PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 27% 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
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 31% · 2018 72% · 2019 61% · 2020 51% · 2021 39% · 2022 34% · 2023 72% — 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
57% of PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 63% 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
89% of PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE's grant income comes from Texas funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.6M arriving through sponsors registered in 11 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
PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 42 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 42 arts & culture nonprofits over $100M, FY2025
Government funding PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $940k on record.
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$731k
- National Science Foundation$208k
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 PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE
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 Texas
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
76% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
47%
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 PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE: 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 PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE?
- PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE (Texas) receives grants from 130 organizations whose IRS filings report $37,022,790 to it, the largest being O'DONNELL FOUNDATION ($10,000,000). 82 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE have?
- IRS filings report 130 organizations giving $37,022,790 in grants to PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE, 82 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE?
- O'DONNELL FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $10,000,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Texas. 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 Perot Museum of Nature & Science →
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 130 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