Illinois · Nonprofit
THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO
THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO (Illinois) receives grants from 711 organizations whose IRS filings report $195,710,612 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($23,342,891). 487 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $464M
- Funders on record
- 711
- Grants received
- $196M
- Net assets
- $2.0B
What The Art Institute of Chicago does
Mission
The Art Institute of Chicago, a not-for-profit corporation, is both a museum and an institution of higher education that exists to provide appreciation and education in visual fine arts and design.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
The school of The Art Institute of Chicago (saic} is an accredited college of art and design offering undergraduate, graduate, and post-baccalaureate degree programs for studio artists, art educators, art therapists, designers, writers, and art historians. Saic's fine arts graduate program is ranked number two in the nation by u.s. News and world report, and the school offers world-class resources including The Art Institute of Chicago museum, on-campus galleries, and state-of-the-art facilities. In fiscal year 2025, average academic year full-time-equivalent enrollment of degree-seeking students was 3,323 with international students from 80 countries.
$199,849,177 spentof which $59,175,780 as grants$204,081,263 earned by the program59% of program spendingThe Art Institute of Chicago shares its singular collections with our city and the world. We collect, care for, and interpret works of art across time, cultures, geographies, and identities, centering the vision of artists and makers. We recognize that all art is made in a particular context, demanding continual, dynamic reconsideration in the present. We are a place of gathering; we foster the exchange of ideas and inspire an expansive, inclusive understanding of human creativity. The museum achieves this through building and stewarding its renowned permanent collection, producing educational programming around the collection, and presenting world class exhibitions highlighting both its collection and objects loaned from other institutions. In fy25, featured exhibitions included "georgia o'keeffe: my new yorks,""myth and marble: ancient roman sculpture from the torlonia collection,"frida kahlo's month in paris: a friendship with mary reynolds."
$140,328,620 spentof which $20,000 as grants$51,562,627 earned by the program41% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $340,177,797.
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 2020 to 2021, from $1.7B to $2.0B (+21%).
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 2% · 2018 2% · 2019 2% · 2020 2% · 2021 4% · 2022 5% · 2023 2% · 2024 1% · 2025 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
17% of THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (14% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 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.
Board chair
Eric P Lefkofsky
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 201 funders to 274 funders, grant income rose $6.3M → $30M.
29 of 711 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 24% 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: $17M from 23 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest The Chicago Community Trust); $14M from one payer (an institutional transfer, not a grant programme, largest Robert Allerton Endowment Fund Xxxxx7501). These are real filings, and they are not money THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO raised.
From the IRS filings of THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 711 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
THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 12% of grant income, and it takes 9 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 9 funders to its left
26% 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 THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 9% · 2018 20% · 2019 65% · 2020 31% · 2021 12% · 2022 22% · 2023 15% — 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
46% of THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 68% 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
63% of THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO's grant income comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $47M arriving through sponsors registered in 18 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
THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 684 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 684 education nonprofits over $100M, FY2025
Government funding THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $12.6M on record — $12.6M federal, $43k state.
- Department of Education$11.2M
- National Endowment for the Humanities$450k
- National Endowment for the Arts$343k
- Department of Health and Human Services$306k
- Department of State$200k
- National Science Foundation$76k
- FEDERAL$43k
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 THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO
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 Illinois
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
89% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
73%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 19 states
Part of a family of 12 related entities
- Aiccb LLC · disregarded
- Aicgs LLC · disregarded
- Aichp LLC · disregarded
- Aic Aa LLC · disregarded
- Aic Ax LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO: 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 THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO?
- THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO (Illinois) receives grants from 711 organizations whose IRS filings report $195,710,612 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($23,342,891). 487 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO have?
- IRS filings report 711 organizations giving $195,710,612 in grants to THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO, 487 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $23,342,891 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Illinois. 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 Art Institute of Chicago →
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 711 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