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Rhode Island · Nonprofit

THE COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM

THE COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM (Rhode Island) receives grants from 50 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,950,362 to it, the largest being ROBERT M GRACE FOUNDATION INC ($825,000). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year.

Revenue FY2025
$2.2M
Funders on record
50
Grants received
$4.0M
Net assets
$30M
26/50 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 48%
01What it does

What The Company of the Redwood Library and Athenaeum does

Mission

Founded in 1747 on the enlightenment ideals of intellectual pursuit and civic engagement, the redwood library and athenaeum generates knowledge in the humanities for the benefit of the widest possible audience with nothing in view but the good of mankind".

As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.

Programs

  1. Museum operations: the athenaeum emphasizes programs and collections important to the study of newport and its history, as well as 18th century america and its sources. It sponsors entertaining and informative adult and children's programs, displays educational and cultural exhibits drawn primarily from the redwood's collections, publishes educational catalogs, newsletters, and finding aids, and provides special tours focusing on rhode island's colonial commitment to freedom of religion and liberty of conscience to school children each year.

    $265,214 spent$1,642 earned by the program
    28% of program spending
  2. Circulation library: open to the public 6 days a week. Patrons, researchers, scholars and visitors can enjoy the more than 200,000 volumes, more than 200 current periodicals, hundreds of cd's,books-on-tape, and e-books available to be checked out by members on-site and through interlibrary loan.

    $141,448 spent
    15% of program spending
  3. Research library: personal attention is provided to researchers and scholars to assist them with independent research. It showcases a permanent exhibition of 18th and 19th century art, including portraits by john smibert, gilbert stuart, robert feke, rembrandt peale, and charles bird king; townsend and goddard furniture; colonial silver, ceramics, paper-based art, and more; and a national historic landmark building, the first public classical building in the colonies.

    $361,606 spent
    38% of program spending
  4. Preservation of historic architecture

    $182,857 spent
    19% of program spending

The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $951,125.

02The organization over time

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.

100 = 20172017 Revenue 100 ($3.2M) Expenses 100 ($2.2M) Net assets 100 ($25M)2018 Revenue 70 ($2.2M) Expenses 104 ($2.2M) Net assets 101 ($25M)2019 Revenue 60 ($1.9M) Expenses 105 ($2.3M) Net assets 100 ($25M)2020 Revenue 68 ($2.2M) Expenses 88 ($1.9M) Net assets 99 ($25M)2021 Revenue 50 ($1.6M) Expenses 58 ($1.2M) Net assets 107 ($27M)2022 Revenue 71 ($2.3M) Expenses 84 ($1.8M) Net assets 100 ($25M)2023 Revenue 108 ($3.5M) Expenses 90 ($1.9M) Net assets 109 ($27M)2024 Revenue 77 ($2.4M) Expenses 91 ($2.0M) Net assets 112 ($28M)2025 Revenue 69 ($2.2M) Expenses 104 ($2.2M) Net assets 117 ($30M)
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Revenue (69)Expenses (104)Net assets (117)

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 $25M to $27M (+8%).

$26M
$26M
$25M
$25M
$27M
$26M
$28M
$29M
$30M
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

Government-grant reliance: 2021 10% · 2023 5% · 2025 11%. 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.

$1.0M
’17
$5k
’18
−$362k
’19
$270k
’20
$351k
’21
$467k
’22
$1.5M
’23
$471k
’24
−$54k
’25
3.0
months of
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

Benedict Leca

Executive director

As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.

'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Listed302726292421232223
Joined·+5+2+5+1+3+5+2+3
No longer listed·83266332
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 9 funders to 24 funders, grant income rose $97k → $1.5M.

10 of 50 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 19% 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 COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 50 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 COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 21% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left

21%
largest funder
47%
top three
~10
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 41% · 2018 37% · 2019 17% · 2020 34% · 2021 17% · 2022 45% · 2023 54% — 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

35% of THE COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 52% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y+3y+4y+5y+6y

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

THE COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM draws 97% of its grant income from funders outside Rhode Island, across 12 states in all.

WA
IL
NY
MA
PA
NJ
CT
RI
CA
DE
TX
FL

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
Rhode Island out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $750k arriving through sponsors registered in 7 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.

04Its place in the field

Organizations like THE COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM

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 Rhode Island

Nationally

05Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

42% of spending goes to programs.

Program 42%Management 37%Fundraising 21%

Governance

19
board members
100%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy✓Whistleblower policy✓Document retention–Board reviewed the 990–Audited financials

Public support

65%

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 THE COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM: 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.

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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 COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM?
THE COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM (Rhode Island) receives grants from 50 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,950,362 to it, the largest being ROBERT M GRACE FOUNDATION INC ($825,000). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year.
How many funders does THE COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM have?
IRS filings report 50 organizations giving $3,950,362 in grants to THE COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM, 26 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of THE COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM?
ROBERT M GRACE FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $825,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like THE COMPANY OF THE REDWOOD LIBRARY AND ATHENAEUM find more funders?
Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Rhode Island. 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 Company of the Redwood Library and Athenaeum →

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 50 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