California · Nonprofit
SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY (California) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $68,809 to it, the largest being JOHN CHRISTOPHER BUNTING FOUNDATION ($25,000). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $136k
- Funders on record
- 8
- Grants received
- $69k
- Net assets
- $462k
What Sonoma Valley Historical Society does
Mission
Sonoma Valley Historical Society (the Society) is a not-for-profit culturalinstitution founded in 1937 and its mission is to provide a forum and a resource for the study and dissemination of Sonoma Valley history for present and future generations by identifying collecting,preserving and sharing artifacts, documents and images.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
The Society maintains an archive and research center at the Marcy House, an historic building leased from the City of Sonoma. In 2019 the Society continued to inventory and catalog historic documents about the Sonoma Valley in its collection and provided access to the collection to the public.The Society operates the Depot Park Museum for the City of Sonoma. The Society uses it collections to present exhibitions for the public several times a year at the Museum and also provides tours of the exhibits at the Museum to school groups.The California State Library, through their California Revealed Project, granted funds for the inventorying and cataloguing of 1500 archival items by personnel of the Sonoma Valley Historical Society. The California Revealed program alsog accepted over 1800 rare Sonoma Valley newspapers nominated by the Sonoma Valley Historical Society for digitizing that will be made available to the public online on the Internet Archive website.California Missions Paintings - The Society acquired and then restored the entire oil painting collection of California Missions by Mattie Fountain.History and Me, Third Grade Project-Through a grant from a donor, the program…
$62,964 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2023 Form 990. Program spending in total: $62,964.
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 2023 to 2024, from $537k to $463k (−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: 2018 25% · 2019 14% · 2020 6% · 2021 22% · 2022 2% · 2023 4%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
41% of SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (64% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base held at 2 funders, grant income fell $10k → $5k.
3 of 8 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 42% 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 SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY’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
SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY leans on a few funders — its largest provides 36% of grant income and the top three 78%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
56% 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 SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 99% · 2019 100% · 2020 100% · 2021 59% · 2022 96% · 2023 99% — broadly stable.
“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
20% of SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 50% 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
88% of SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $29k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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
SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 17,936 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 17,936 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
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 California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
82% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
81%
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 SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY: 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 SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY?
- SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY (California) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $68,809 to it, the largest being JOHN CHRISTOPHER BUNTING FOUNDATION ($25,000). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY have?
- IRS filings report 8 organizations giving $68,809 in grants to SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 4 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY?
- JOHN CHRISTOPHER BUNTING FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $25,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SONOMA VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. 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 Sonoma Valley Historical Society →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 8 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