Washington · Nonprofit
Seattle Chamber Music Festival
Seattle Chamber Music Festival (Washington) receives grants from 31 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,352,477 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($1,077,205). 19 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 71% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $8.5M
- Funders on record
- 31
- Grants received
- $3.4M
- Net assets
- $7.9M
What Seattle Chamber Music Festival does
Mission
Seattle Chamber Music Festival fosters the appreciation of chamber music by presenting performances featuring world-class musicians in accessible and inviting formats, with an emphasis on developing a broad-based sustainable audience through education and community outreach.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
The 2025 Summer Festival presented in-person and virtually, featuring 12 concerts, 12 pre-concert recitals, a jazz night and Tasting Notes, an interactive food and music celebration featuring celebrity chefs from the area.
$786,105 spent$314,577 earned by the program32% of program spendingThe 2025 Winter Festival offered six concerts in-person in the Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall which were also streamed online via livestream and available on-demand through the Virtual Concert Hall. In addition, open rehearsals, 6 free pre-concert recitals, multiple lectures and a sensory-friendly concert were offered.
$414,457 spent$165,854 earned by the program17% of program spendingSeattle Chamber Music Society presented The Concert Truck in 18 free concerts throughout King County area parks and community spaces, and 2 large-scale concerts in major parks in Seattle and Bellevue. The Concert Truck is a mobile concert hall, complete with lights, sound, stage, piano, curtain and more, and designed to bring music outside of the concert hall and into the community.
$206,161 spent$82,500 earned by the program8% of program spendingProgram Service 4:Seattle Chamber Music Society introduced year-round programming in 2022. This was a new project for SCMS and one that continues to bring many concerts to the Center of Chamber Music, at the Nordstrom Recital Hall and at Town Hall. Program Service 5:The SCMS Academy for Chamber Music offers high level training platforms for talented musicians in the Seattle and surrounding areas. An academy for adult muscians was added in 2025 to the existing youth program and a total of 129 participants were welcomed to study chamber music and perform in concerts and master classes during the spring and fall semesters in 2025.
$1,028,068 spent$415,512 earned by the program42% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,434,791.
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 $5.0M to $9.9M (+96%).
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 3% · 2018 3% · 2019 1% · 2020 3% · 2021 23% · 2022 2% · 2023 9% · 2024 2% · 2025 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
86% of Seattle Chamber Music Festival’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (63% 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
John Holloway
Chief Executive Officer
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 7 funders to 14 funders, grant income rose $52k → $419k.
11 of 31 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 71% 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: $1.4M from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Seattle Chamber Music Society Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money Seattle Chamber Music Festival raised.
From the IRS filings of Seattle Chamber Music Festival’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 31 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 Chamber Music Festival has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 32% 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
82% 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 Seattle Chamber Music Festival.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 51% · 2018 35% · 2019 55% · 2020 29% · 2021 22% · 2022 29% · 2023 24% — 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
42% of Seattle Chamber Music Festival's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 61% 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
71% of Seattle Chamber Music Festival'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 $957k that is directly attributable, 74% of it comes from Washington funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.4M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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 Chamber Music Festival runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding Seattle Chamber Music Festival receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $200k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$200k
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 Chamber Music Festival
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
64% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
68%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Seattle Chamber Music Society Foundation · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Seattle Chamber Music Festival: 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 Chamber Music Festival?
- Seattle Chamber Music Festival (Washington) receives grants from 31 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,352,477 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($1,077,205). 19 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 71% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Seattle Chamber Music Festival have?
- IRS filings report 31 organizations giving $3,352,477 in grants to Seattle Chamber Music Festival, 19 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Seattle Chamber Music Festival?
- DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC is the largest funder on record, with $1,077,205 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Seattle Chamber Music Festival 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 Chamber Music Festival →
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 31 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