Washington · Nonprofit
SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS
SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS (Washington) receives grants from 6 organizations whose IRS filings report $322,553 to it, the largest being BECKMAN LASER INSTITUTE INC ($200,000). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $64M
- Funders on record
- 6
- Grants received
- $323k
- Net assets
- $129M
What Society of Photo Optical Instrumentation Engineers does
Mission
SPIE is an international nonprofit technical society dedicated to advancing scientific research and engineering applications of optical, photonic, imaging and optoelectronic technologies through its meetings, education programs and publications.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Technical Events - SPIE organized technical/scientific and engineering meetings with approximately 36,000 attendees. Included in the content of these Technical Events are basic research, research technology methods and applications. Many of our technical events also include Exhibits and a Career Center. There were about 300 conferences held in 2025 where scientists presented their research findings and collaborated on their work. In addition to the conferences offered at the 2025 Technical Events, there were also more than 100 in-person educational courses.
$19,987,540 spentof which $138,897 as grants$35,162,842 earned by the program63% of program spendingPublications - SPIE helps the scientist authors publish their work via Publications and Journals. The technical publications include: books, Journals, conference proceedings, and online products. Proceedings of SPIE conferences are technical publications that educate the engineering community about current technology, research and applications. Online website links allow access to products and services used by scientists and engineers. Approximately 5,500 hardcopy books were shipped in 2025. SPIE is also the publisher of over 15 technical journals: Advanced Photonics, Advanced Photonics Nexus, Advanced Quantum Photonics, Biophotonics Discovery, Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, Journal of Astronomical, Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems, Journal of Biomedical Optics, Journal of Medical Imaging, Journal of Micro/Nanopatterning, Materials and Metrology, Journal of Nanophotonics, Journal of Optical Microsystems, Journal of Photonics for Energy, Neurophotonics, Optical Engineering, and Photonics Insights. SPIE is also a Co-publisher of Journal of Electronic Imaging with Society for Imaging Science and Technology. Total circulation of journals during 2025 was about 25,000 online…
$6,621,592 spentof which $21,265 as grants$13,221,545 earned by the program21% of program spendingEducation - SPIE awarded education scholarships and grants to support education outreach. More than 10,000 Women in Optics notebooks were printed and distributed in 2025. The SPIE Education department held career advancement events, including in-person workshops, and networking and mentoring socials, serving over 750 attendees. SPIE also presented in-person short courses at events, in-company training sessions, and issued Certificates of Completion. SPIE also held instructional webinars and offers on-demand online courses.
$3,122,270 spentof which $1,741,729 as grants$300,359 earned by the program10% of program spendingMembership - In 2025 SPIE provided support to attend conferences to student authors, and activity grants for student chapter groups. As part of our membership program, SPIE also provides reduced dues for students and members from developing nations.
$2,060,304 spentof which $703,974 as grants$2,993,225 earned by the program6% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $31,791,706.
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.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2021 to 2022, from $145M to $124M (−14%).
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 0% · 2018 0% · 2019 0% · 2020 0% · 2021 16% · 2022 0% · 2023 0% · 2024 0% · 2025 0%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 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
Kent Rochford
Chief Executive Officer
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2020 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 3 funders, grant income rose $15k → $30k.
1 of 6 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 0% 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 SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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
SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS leans on a few funders — its largest provides 62% of grant income and the top three 92%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
30% 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 SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2020 100% · 2021 100% · 2022 57% · 2023 83% — 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.
Where its funders are
SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS draws 100% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, across 5 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $26 arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state 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.
Government funding SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $2.5M on record.
- Department of Defense$1.4M
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration$772k
- Department of Commerce$287k
- Smithsonian Institution$29k
- Department of Homeland Security$18k
- Department of Health and Human Services$18k
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 SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS
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
58% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
94%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 22 states
Part of a family of 2 related entities
- SPIE Europe Ltd #5085639 · exempt
- SPIE Events Europe #5099292 · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS: 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 SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS?
- SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS (Washington) receives grants from 6 organizations whose IRS filings report $322,553 to it, the largest being BECKMAN LASER INSTITUTE INC ($200,000). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS have?
- IRS filings report 6 organizations giving $322,553 in grants to SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS, 4 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS?
- BECKMAN LASER INSTITUTE INC is the largest funder on record, with $200,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SOCIETY OF PHOTO OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS 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.
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 6 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