Connecticut · Nonprofit
THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC
THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC (Connecticut) receives grants from 33 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,402,653 to it, the largest being ELIZABETH M PFRIEM FOUNDATION ($300,000). 16 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.8M
- Funders on record
- 33
- Grants received
- $1.4M
- Net assets
- $4.5M
What The Discovery Museum Inc does
Mission
The Discovery Museum strives to engage, excite, and educate young learners through experiences and programs that inspire wonder and ignite creativity as the foundation for a lifetime love of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning.The Museums core audience is young learners ages 5-14 who connect to us with their teachers and classmates during the school day or by themselves or with their families, mentors, or social groups after school, on weekends, during school vacations or in the summer. We provide a hardy portfolio of STEM learning experiences including; unmediated gallery-based exploration of STEM focused temporary and permanent exhibits; over 80 unique onsite and offsite mediated demonstrations and learning labs; a Challenger Learning Center space exploration simulation; Planetarium shows; unique grant-funded school-museum science learning partnerships; and an engaging 7-week summer STEM learning program.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Educational and guest services programs: develop and deliver high-quality informal science programming supporting current national and local science education standards. Support classroom teachers to achieve their science learning goals through in-house, outreach, and professional development programming. Act as a resource to enhance science literacy among our visitors and community at large.
$1,889,960 spent$685,425 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,889,960.
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 $5.6M to $6.7M (+19%).
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 21% · 2018 17% · 2019 28% · 2020 41% · 2021 46% · 2022 50% · 2023 32% · 2024 24% · 2025 15%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
42% of THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 6 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 12 funders, grant income rose $49k → $205k.
5 of 33 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 8% 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 DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 33 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 DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 21% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left
37% 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 DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 63% · 2018 38% · 2019 52% · 2020 45% · 2021 45% · 2022 47% · 2023 39% — diversifying over time.
“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
53% of THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC'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
THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC draws 54% of its grant income from funders outside Connecticut, across 11 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $117k 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
THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC's funding base is broadening — from 4 funders to 12 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,230 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $3.7M on record — $195k federal, $3.5M state.
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$156k
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration$39k
- Pass thru Grant Non-State$2.0M
- State Aid Grants$1.6M
- Client Subsidies$565
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 DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC
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 Connecticut
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
73% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
91%
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 DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC: 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 DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC?
- THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC (Connecticut) receives grants from 33 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,402,653 to it, the largest being ELIZABETH M PFRIEM FOUNDATION ($300,000). 16 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC have?
- IRS filings report 33 organizations giving $1,402,653 in grants to THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC, 16 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC?
- ELIZABETH M PFRIEM FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $300,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Connecticut. 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 Discovery Museum →
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 33 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