THE FERGUSON LIBRARY

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.

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 89% · 2018 75% · 2019 75% · 2020 88% · 2021 90% · 2022 84% · 2023 88% · 2024 92% · 2025 94%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 7 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 13 funders to 19 funders, grant income fell $241k → $215k.

4 of 42 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 15% 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: $1.2M from one payer (the payer's own filing calls it a related party, largest Ferguson Library Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money THE FERGUSON LIBRARY raised.

From the IRS filings of THE FERGUSON LIBRARY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 42 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 FERGUSON LIBRARY leans on a few funders — its largest provides 43% of grant income and the top three 67%; half comes from just 2 funders.

62% 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 FERGUSON LIBRARY.

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 46% · 2018 27% · 2019 24% · 2020 48% · 2021 41% · 2022 49% · 2023 46% — broadly stable.

“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

56% of THE FERGUSON LIBRARY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 64% 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

79% of THE FERGUSON LIBRARY's grant income comes from Connecticut funders.

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $315k arriving through sponsors registered in 4 statesis 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.