Washington · Nonprofit
SEATTLE ART MUSEUM
SEATTLE ART MUSEUM (Washington) receives grants from 182 organizations whose IRS filings report $371,525,699 to it, the largest being FRIDAY FOUNDATION ($304,336,500). 121 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $38M
- Funders on record
- 182
- Grants received
- $372M
- Net assets
- $379M
What Seattle Art Museum does
Mission
Founded in 1917, the Seattle Art Museum (sam) connects art to life. As the leading visual art institution in the pacific northwest, sam draws on its global collections, powerful special exhibitions, numerous installations, and dynamic programs to fulfill its important role as a cultural and educational resource benefitting the seattle region, the pacific northwest, and beyond. From a strong foundation of asian art to noteworthy collections of african and oceanic art, northwest coast native american art, european and american art, and modern and contemporary art, the strength of sam's collection of approximately 25,000 objects lies in its diversity of media, cultures, and time periods. With three locations (Seattle Art Museum, olympic sculpture park, seattle asian art museum), sam harnesses the power of art to enrich lives and engage diverse communities, including hundreds of thousands of visitors, as well as thousands of seattle-area students.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Museum services: providing a public art museum including the accession of art objects as well as public art exhibitions and art education for the general public. Museum patrons visited this year at three different seattle locations - the Seattle Art Museum, the olympic sculpture park and the asian art museum.
$33,134,414 spent$5,964,483 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $33,134,414.
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 $356M to $403M (+13%).
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 1% · 2018 26% · 2019 22% · 2020 2% · 2021 5% · 2022 10% · 2023 4% · 2024 1% · 2025 4%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
46% of SEATTLE ART MUSEUM’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (58% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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
Scott Morris
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 51 funders to 85 funders, grant income fell $14M → $9.8M.
22 of 182 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 6% 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: $6.4M from 4 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Seattle Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money SEATTLE ART MUSEUM raised.
From the IRS filings of SEATTLE ART MUSEUM’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 182 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
SEATTLE ART MUSEUM leans on a few funders — its largest provides 82% of grant income and the top three 88%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 26% · 2018 67% · 2019 38% · 2020 97% · 2021 89% · 2022 17% · 2023 20% — 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
53% of SEATTLE ART MUSEUM's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 66% 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
97% of SEATTLE ART MUSEUM's grant income comes from Washington funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $21M arriving through sponsors registered in 15 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
SEATTLE ART MUSEUM is better cushioned than half 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 SEATTLE ART MUSEUM receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $2.2M on record.
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$1.2M
- National Endowment for the Humanities$850k
- National Endowment for the Arts$120k
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 SEATTLE ART MUSEUM
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 Washington
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
75% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
53%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 29 states
Part of a family of 3 related entities
- Saam Building Master Tenant LLC · partnership
- Sam Building Landlord LLC · partnership
- Sam-Saam Renovation LLC · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for SEATTLE ART MUSEUM: 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 SEATTLE ART MUSEUM?
- SEATTLE ART MUSEUM (Washington) receives grants from 182 organizations whose IRS filings report $371,525,699 to it, the largest being FRIDAY FOUNDATION ($304,336,500). 121 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SEATTLE ART MUSEUM have?
- IRS filings report 182 organizations giving $371,525,699 in grants to SEATTLE ART MUSEUM, 121 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SEATTLE ART MUSEUM?
- FRIDAY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $304,336,500 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SEATTLE ART MUSEUM find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Washington. 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 Seattle Art Museum →
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 182 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