Virginia · Nonprofit
THE MARINERS' MUSEUM
THE MARINERS' MUSEUM (Virginia) receives grants from 57 organizations whose IRS filings report $10,416,150 to it, the largest being THE BATTEN FOUNDATION ($5,000,000). 38 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $14M
- Funders on record
- 57
- Grants received
- $10M
- Net assets
- $146M
What The Mariners' Museum does
Mission
The Mariners' Museum and park connects people to the world's waters, because through the waters - through our shared maritime heritage - we are connected to one another.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
The two operational tenets of the "community-focused" prong of our strategy are "access" (to the art, artifacts, and archival material of The Mariners' Museum collection, and to the "living collection" the forest, lake, and wildlife - within mariners' park), and "value" (with a primary focus on educational enrichment programs serving school-aged children). Our educational enrichment programs (eep's) are designed to provide engaging experiences that enhance the standard classroom curriculum, encourage active student particiation, and emphasize important life skills such as critical thinking and communication. Participation in our eep's foster a greater sense of belonging within the students we serve, consistent with the goals of our mission. During the 2023-2024 academic year, The Mariners' Museum served local schools with more than 26,000 student engagements. Over 80% of these students participated for free, the programs for the remainder were heavily subsidized, and in many instances, we paid the transportation costs to get the students to our mariners' campus. Our team also completed the first year of "the mariners' lake effect" program with all sixth-graders from newport news…
$4,596,036 spentof which $11,560 as grants$325,719 earned by the program45% of program spendingOne of the two operational tenets of the "collections-based" prong of our strategy is "conservation" of the art, artifacts, and archival material of The Mariners' Museum collection ("heritage conservation") and of the "living collection" the forest, lake, and wildlife - within mariners' park ("environmental conservation"). Highlights from heritage conservation work in 2024 feature the relocation of the museum's nearly 90 figureheads as well as over two dozen sternboards with the goal of improving the preventive care of these important collections. Team members from multiple museum departments built out storage for these relocated collections actually within museum galleries, simultaneously improving community access to the collections. Contemporaneously, the museum's digitization and archival teams launched an in-house digitization project funded by a "save america's treasures" grant. Nearly 13,500 negatives were digitized from the a. Aubrey bodine and edwin levick collections. The mariners' park team and our conservation scientist continued active water quality testing of our 167-acre mariners' lake, a program that shows our stormwater-fed lake remains healthy. Our forest…
$2,986,932 spentof which $4,850 as grants$159,806 earned by the program29% of program spendingOne of the two operational tenets of the "collections-based" prong of our strategy is "research, or "building the body of knowledge" about The Mariners' Museum's vast maritime archival collection (an estimated 2 million archival pieces), maritime library (over 100,000 volumes), maritime art collection (thousands of paintings and works on paper), and maritime artifact collection, and about the "living collection" the forest, lake, and wildlife within mariners' park. In 2024, our conservation research scientist, in collaboration with a conservation science fellow, further refined an approach to capture and/or mitigate the effects of sulphur trapped in waterlogged archaeological wood. This problem, untreated, manifests itself in the development of sulfuric acid when formerly waterlogged archaeological wood that is dried and displayed - a particularly thorny problem for recovered and conserved historic shipwrecks globally. Our archival team and curatorial team improved the cataloging of significant portions of our archive, photographic, and artifact collections, with a particular emphasis on capturing the human stories that live within these collection items. We regularly host partner…
$2,547,395 spentof which $4,138 as grants$18,910 earned by the program25% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $10,130,363.
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 $160M to $140M (−13%).
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: 2018 1% · 2020 35% · 2021 21%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
68% of THE MARINERS' MUSEUM’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (58% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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
Howard H Hoege Iii
President & CEO
Board chair
Jennifer Boykin
Chairman of the board
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 9 funders to 30 funders, grant income rose $86k → $1.2M.
11 of 57 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 4% 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: $27M from 5 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Mariners Museum Trust No 2 Xxxxx2009). These are real filings, and they are not money THE MARINERS' MUSEUM raised.
From the IRS filings of THE MARINERS' MUSEUM’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 57 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 MARINERS' MUSEUM leans on a few funders — its largest provides 48% of grant income and the top three 65%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 58% · 2018 52% · 2019 31% · 2020 17% · 2021 21% · 2022 86% · 2023 20% — 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
56% of THE MARINERS' MUSEUM's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 67% 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
84% of THE MARINERS' MUSEUM's grant income comes from Virginia funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $383k arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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 MARINERS' MUSEUM runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 772 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 772 arts & culture nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2024
Government funding THE MARINERS' MUSEUM receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $4.5M on record.
- Department of Commerce$2.4M
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$1.1M
- National Endowment for the Humanities$777k
- Department of the Interior$162k
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 MARINERS' 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 Virginia
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
81% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
82%
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 MARINERS' 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 MARINERS' MUSEUM?
- THE MARINERS' MUSEUM (Virginia) receives grants from 57 organizations whose IRS filings report $10,416,150 to it, the largest being THE BATTEN FOUNDATION ($5,000,000). 38 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does THE MARINERS' MUSEUM have?
- IRS filings report 57 organizations giving $10,416,150 in grants to THE MARINERS' MUSEUM, 38 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of THE MARINERS' MUSEUM?
- THE BATTEN FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $5,000,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like THE MARINERS' MUSEUM find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Virginia. 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 Mariners' 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 57 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