South Carolina · Nonprofit
The Charleston Museum
The Charleston Museum (South Carolina) receives grants from 25 organizations whose IRS filings report $291,592 to it, the largest being E MILBY BURTON MEMORIAL TRUST ($104,682). 12 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $3.8M
- Funders on record
- 25
- Grants received
- $292k
- Net assets
- $24M
What The Charleston Museum does
Mission
To educate Charleston area residents and visitors about the natural and cultural history of the South Carolina Lowcountry through collections, exhibitions, preservation, conservation, research and related programming.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Curation of Collections: The Charleston Museum's collections consist of the most comprehensive assemblage of historic South Carolina cultural and scientific materials known, and many have national or international significance. They number over 297,000 lots and over 2.4 million objects. Collecting focuses include archival materials, decorative arts, firearms, furniture, historical archaeology, costume and other textiles, and natural history. They are overseen by a curatorial staff of seven professionals. The Museum regularly acquires new collection pieces, most of which come in through donation. In 2024, nearly 60 individuals or institutions donated artifacts to the Museum including objects related to the Civil Rights movement in Charleston and several archaeology collections. Particularly significant objects (over 5,400) are on display to the visiting public in exhibit galleries and the Museum's two historic houses, while others are used extensively for research purposes. Curatorial staff regularly work with researchers and colleague institutions to share the collections. A digitization project is ongoing to electronically catalog collections, and segments of the collections…
$672,087 spent$6,510 earned by the program25% of program spendingExhibition, Interpretation and Facilities Operations: Through exhibition and interpretation of its collections, The Charleston Museum seeks to educate the general public about the natural and cultural history of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Staff do this through permanent and special temporary exhibitions at the main Museum facility and by presenting tours of the Museum's two National Historic Landmark houses, the Heyward-Washington House (c. 1772) and Joseph Manigault House (c. 1803). Permanent exhibits present a comprehensive overview of regional history, while temporary exhibits focus on diverse aspects of Lowcountry heritage and feature infrequently shown artifacts. Together, these exhibits display over 5,400 objects from the collections. In 2024, the Museum opened "Beyond the Ashes: The Lowcountry's New Beginnings" in its galleries, which completes its permanent exhibition. The new exhibit covers the Reconstruction era to the 21st century, and includes a number of collection pieces that have not been exhibited before as well as recent acquisitions related to the area's Civil Rights movement. The Museum's Bunting Natural History Gallery, which opened in 2017, provides a…
$1,673,396 spent$1,412,073 earned by the program62% of program spendingEducational Programs: The Museum has traditionally placed great emphasis on children's education and routinely hosts school field trips from around the state at the Museum, its two historic houses, and the Dill Sanctuary, a 580-acre wildlife Sanctuary, owned and operated by the Museum. Three full-time Education Department staff, assisted by a corps of part-time staff and volunteers, offer over twenty programs for school groups, including topics related to Native Americans, African American history, the American Revolution, Civil War, archaeology, paleontology, architecture, and historic crafts. Programs are designed to meet South Carolina curriculum standards for social studies and science, and the Museum has developed partnerships with local schools and non-profit organizations that support them to develop specialized programming. On-site school programs were dramatically impacted by the pandemic, but school field trips to the Museum have recovered in 2023 and 2024. Over 6,200 children visited the Museum in 2023 as part of school field trips, and over 7,700 visited in 2024. Museum educators have workedclosely with local school districts and non-profit funding agencies to develop…
$357,917 spent$117,593 earned by the program13% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,703,400.
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 2021 to 2022, from $23M to $21M (−8%).
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 27% · 2018 24% · 2019 30% · 2020 50% · 2021 27% · 2022 33% · 2023 21% · 2024 31%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
33% of The Charleston Museum’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 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.
Chief executive
Carl Borick CPA
Executive Director
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 5 funders to 11 funders, grant income rose $12k → $63k.
2 of 25 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 11% 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 The Charleston Museum’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
The Charleston Museum has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 36% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
51% 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 Charleston Museum.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 26% · 2018 56% · 2019 64% · 2020 37% · 2021 43% · 2022 50% · 2023 39% — 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
50% of The Charleston Museum's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 48% 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
70% of The Charleston Museum's grant income comes from South Carolina funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $33k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 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 Charleston Museum holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 5,136 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 5,136 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like The Charleston Museum
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 South Carolina
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
90% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
84%
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 The Charleston Museum: 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 Charleston Museum?
- The Charleston Museum (South Carolina) receives grants from 25 organizations whose IRS filings report $291,592 to it, the largest being E MILBY BURTON MEMORIAL TRUST ($104,682). 12 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does The Charleston Museum have?
- IRS filings report 25 organizations giving $291,592 in grants to The Charleston Museum, 12 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The Charleston Museum?
- E MILBY BURTON MEMORIAL TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $104,682 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The Charleston Museum find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in South Carolina. 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 Charleston Museum →
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 25 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