Vermont · Nonprofit
SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC
SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC (Vermont) receives grants from 127 organizations whose IRS filings report $13,007,391 to it, the largest being LILLY ENDOWMENT INC ($2,600,000). 78 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $19M
- Funders on record
- 127
- Grants received
- $13M
- Net assets
- $60M
What Shelburne Museum Inc does
Mission
To broaden our audience, engage their curiosity, animate their creativity, and give them an extraordinary, educational museum experience.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Operation of a museum of art and americana including impressionist paintings, folk art, quilts, textiles, decorative arts, furniture, american paintings and 17th to 20th century artifacts. During the year ended march 31, 2025, the museum's overall visitors totaled 136,413 including 28,349 school-aged children. Special exhibitions included: shelburne museum organizes and presents exhibitions and programs for the enrichment of the community. Each year the museum presents approximately ten to twelve rotating and permanent exhibitions. During the year 2025, shelburne museum presented the following rotating exhibitions: making a noise: indigenous sound art; sound, art, & ink: higher ground posters; herd: karen petersen's bronze horses; dahlov ipcar: the possibilities of pattern; blueprint of a collection: cyanotype photography of david sokosh; porcelain love letters: the art of mara superior; a grand spectacle in the great outdoors: elliot fernander's circus photography; circus poster selections from the permanent collection; rotating quilt installations from the permanent collection. Special programs: during the fiscal year 2025 in-person programming returned to prepandemic levels,…
$6,468,911 spent$1,675,064 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $6,468,911.
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 $52M to $62M (+19%).
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: 2021 11% · 2022 8% · 2023 5% · 2024 1% · 2025 5%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
80% of SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than 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 8 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 Wise
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 28 funders to 67 funders, grant income rose $772k → $1.4M.
18 of 127 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 23% 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 SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 127 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
SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 20% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 35% · 2018 68% · 2019 56% · 2020 37% · 2021 36% · 2022 16% · 2023 21% — 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
60% of SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC'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
SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC draws 96% of its grant income from funders outside Vermont, across 27 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.9M 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
SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 550 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 550 arts & culture nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $2.4M on record — $1.7M federal, $697k state.
- National Endowment for the Humanities$961k
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$602k
- National Endowment for the Arts$50k
- Department of the Interior$43k
- Other Grants$329k
- Grants$300k
- ARPA-SLFRF Rev Replacement$61k
- Environmental Site Work$6k
- Instate Conf, Meetings, Etc$750
- Advertising - Print$227
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 SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC
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 Vermont
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
67% 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 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC: 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 SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC?
- SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC (Vermont) receives grants from 127 organizations whose IRS filings report $13,007,391 to it, the largest being LILLY ENDOWMENT INC ($2,600,000). 78 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC have?
- IRS filings report 127 organizations giving $13,007,391 in grants to SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC, 78 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC?
- LILLY ENDOWMENT INC is the largest funder on record, with $2,600,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Vermont. 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 Shelburne 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 127 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