New York · Nonprofit
SESAME WORKSHOP
SESAME WORKSHOP (New York) receives grants from 178 organizations whose IRS filings report $160,761,816 to it, the largest being John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation (Consolidated) ($100,250,000). 100 of them have funded it in more than one year.
Against its field
SESAME WORKSHOP has grown faster than half of the 34 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 34 arts & culture nonprofits over $100M, FY2025
Three funders worth looking at
Grantmakers with no record of funding this organization, ranked by how strongly the co-funder graph and the mission embeddings agree. The evidence is in section 03.
- Donald a Pels Charitable Trust Utd 8/18/92 C/O Pkf O'Connor Daviesshared funders
- Arthur & Hilda Wenig Charitable Foundationportfolio match
- The Nemet Foundation Incportfolio match
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.
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 4% · 2018 2% · 2019 2% · 2020 1% · 2021 1% · 2022 2% · 2023 5% · 2024 4% · 2025 6%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
31% of SESAME WORKSHOP’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue 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. 1 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 16 funders to 72 funders, grant income rose $3.7M → $7.3M.
25 of 178 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 8% 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 SESAME WORKSHOP’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 178 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
SESAME WORKSHOP leans on a few funders — its largest provides 62% of grant income and the top three 73%; 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 83% · 2018 82% · 2019 85% · 2020 85% · 2021 80% · 2022 63% · 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
38% of SESAME WORKSHOP's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 56% 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
SESAME WORKSHOP draws 94% of its grant income from funders outside New York, across 28 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $13M arriving through sponsors registered in 15 statesis 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.
Funders to approach
Grantmakers that don’t fund you yet, surfaced two ways: they back organizations that share your funders, or their grantees resemble your mission. The ones both signals agree on come first. Your 178 funders put you under-funded among the 400 organizations that share them.
- Donald a Pels Charitable Trust Utd 8/18/92 C/O Pkf O'Connor Daviesshared fundersNY · backs 74 organizations that share your funders
- Arthur & Hilda Wenig Charitable Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Nemet Foundation Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Yeatman Family Foundation Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Barbara Freid Gottesman Charitable Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Khp Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- George and Lenore Gottridge Foundation Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Joshua & Geula Solomon Family Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Ogunlesi Family Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Lipton Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation Incshared funderslocalNY · backs 99 organizations that share your funders · funds 263 organizations near you
- Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation Inc C/O Joel E Sammet & Co LLPshared fundersNY · backs 71 organizations that share your funders
From the co-funder graph (funders backing at least two comparable organizations, shrunk for grantee count, donor-advised and mega-funds excluded) and the universe embeddings. A research starting point; overlap is association, not a guarantee of fit.
Government funding SESAME WORKSHOP receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $40.2M on record — $40.2M federal, $5k state.
- Agency for International Development$22.3M
- Department of Defense$5.7M
- Department of Education$4.0M
- General Services Administration$4.0M
- National Science Foundation$2.3M
- Department of State$1.7M
- FEDERAL$5k
- DEDICATED$200
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 SESAME WORKSHOP
Nonprofits whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over the universe of US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In New York
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
79% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
39%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 51 states
Part of a family of 20 related entities
- Sesame Workshop Bangladesh · disregarded
- Sesame Street Inc · exempt
- The Electric Company Inc · exempt
- Joan Ganz Cooney Center for Education · exempt
- Galli Galli Sim Sim Educational Initiative · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for SESAME WORKSHOP: 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. How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds SESAME WORKSHOP?
- SESAME WORKSHOP (New York) receives grants from 178 organizations whose IRS filings report $160,761,816 to it, the largest being John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation (Consolidated) ($100,250,000). 100 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SESAME WORKSHOP have?
- IRS filings report 178 organizations giving $160,761,816 in grants to SESAME WORKSHOP, 100 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SESAME WORKSHOP?
- John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation (Consolidated) is the largest funder on record, with $100,250,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SESAME WORKSHOP find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in New York. 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 178funders 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 August 27, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing