Virginia · Nonprofit
TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART
TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART (Virginia) receives grants from 9 organizations whose IRS filings report $361,062 to it, the largest being ARTS COUNCIL OF FAIRFAX COUNTY INC ($272,484). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $665k
- Funders on record
- 9
- Grants received
- $361k
- Net assets
- $890k
What Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art does
Mission
Promote innovative contemporary art and thinking by providing a year-round program of contemporary visual art exhibitions. Education programs for all ages, and special events
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Events: tephra ica produces a number of events that expore contemporary art and our current exhibitions. The tephra ica arts festival, formerly titled the northern virginia fine arts festival, is a nationally ranked juried, outdoor show offering the community an opportunity to enjoy and purchase supperior fine art and fine craft from over 200 artists from around the country. The festival is both the institution's largest fundraiser, and its most-attended event, typically attracting over 20,000 people to reston town center that weekend. There are opportunities for partrons to engage with art and artists, experience innovative performances and activations, and for families to engage in creative artmaking.
$162,705 spent$197,045 earned by the program77% of program spendingEducation: tephra ica is committed to its diverse educational programs that seek to reach and engage a wide and diverse audience of all ages. We partner with exhibiting artists, curators, scholars and educators on the development of unique programs to serve families and teens both in school and in our galleries. Our workshops invites people of all ages to participate in free workshops either led or inspired by exhibiting artists. Our earth day programming offers outdoor, environmentally focused, arts workshops to creatives of all ages. We also support the development of students interested in the arts via our career sessions and internship program.
$1,511 spent$7,576 earned by the program1% of program spendingExhibitions: the institution mounts six to eight contemporary art exhibitions each year, typically featuring work by emerging and established regional and national artists. This includes solo exhibitions as well as thematic group shows that present a broad range of contemporary artists working in a wide variety of media. Each exhibition is augmented with a series of public programs, including curator talks, artist workshops, and our creative response program, for which experts in their field respond to the artwork on view and engage the audience in conversation.
$46,825 spent$3,230 earned by the program22% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $211,041.
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 2022 to 2023, from $1.1M to $984k (−10%).
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 13% · 2020 11% · 2021 25% · 2022 14% · 2023 12% · 2024 14% · 2025 14%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
68% of TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (64% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 7 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
Robert Goudie
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 3 funders to 2 funders, grant income fell $59k → $32k.
5 of 9 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 21% 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: $322k from 2 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Reston Town Center Joint Committee). These are real filings, and they are not money TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART raised.
From the IRS filings of TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART’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
TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART leans on a few funders — its largest provides 75% of grant income and the top three 91%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
100% 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 TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 75% · 2018 83% · 2019 71% · 2020 69% · 2021 80% · 2022 95% · 2023 100% — growing more concentrated.
“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 TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 44% 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
96% of TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART's grant income comes from Virginia funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $77k arriving through sponsors registered in 5 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
TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART's revenue grew 17% between 2017 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 11,634 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART
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 Virginia
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
33% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART: 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 TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART?
- TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART (Virginia) receives grants from 9 organizations whose IRS filings report $361,062 to it, the largest being ARTS COUNCIL OF FAIRFAX COUNTY INC ($272,484). 4 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART have?
- IRS filings report 9 organizations giving $361,062 in grants to TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, 4 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART?
- ARTS COUNCIL OF FAIRFAX COUNTY INC is the largest funder on record, with $272,484 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like TEPHRA INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Virginia. 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 Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art →
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 9 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