Illinois · Nonprofit
THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY
THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY (Illinois) receives grants from 135 organizations whose IRS filings report $22,731,662 to it, the largest being Harold B Smith Foundation ($5,008,864). 93 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $9.9M
- Funders on record
- 135
- Grants received
- $23M
- Net assets
- $108M
What The Newberry Library does
Mission
The Newberry is an internationally recognized cultural organization that is home to a growing and dynamic collection of materials that chronicles human achievement and experience from year one through today. We preserve these items and make them accessible so that users may better learn from the past, understand the present, and influence the future. Anyone 14 years of age or older can get a free readers card and explore their curiosity in our reading rooms by coming face-to-face with one of 600,000 maps, 5 million manuscript pages, or 1.6 million books, and more. We serve scholars at all points in their careers, supporting groundbreaking research in a variety of fields. We engage the public through free exhibitions that showcase the collection, free programs that explore a variety of topics from history to literature to performing arts, and continuing education classes.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Our dedicated librarians, curators, catalogers, and conservators serve readers, grow and care for the collection, and expand access to digital tools. Items purchased: 619. Items catalogued: 3,464. Items treated by conservation: 1,976. Items viewed or downloaded from digital collections: 1,540,041. Digital files/images created from Newberry collection items: 159,635. Individuals registered as Newberry readers: 5,148. Items requested for use in reading rooms: 13,069. 4,623 Unique readers made 9,828 visits to the reading room. Reference requests fielded by Newberry librarians and curators: 8,516. Exhibitions, public programs, and adult education classes are a first point of contact for many people who engage with our community. We offer in-person, virtual, and hybrid programming. Adult Education Seminars Participants: 1,642. Public Programs Attendees: 7,800. Exhibition Visitors: 28,149. Social Media Platform Followers: 66,000. In addition to more public-facing offerings, Newberry staff serve research fellows, teachers, graduate and undergraduate students, and other academics. Participants in Research Center programs: 1,140. Digital Collections for Classroom Site Users: 156,000.…
$9,173,137 spentof which $1,091,190 as grants$851,604 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $9,173,137.
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 2020 to 2021, from $100M to $118M (+18%).
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 3% · 2018 1% · 2019 6% · 2020 4% · 2021 16% · 2022 23% · 2023 3% · 2024 2% · 2025 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
53% of THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (48% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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.
Board chair
Robert A Holland
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 30 funders to 67 funders, grant income rose $663k → $2.6M.
10 of 135 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 23% 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: $2.6M from 5 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest The Chicago Community Trust). These are real filings, and they are not money THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY raised.
From the IRS filings of THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 135 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 NEWBERRY LIBRARY has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 22% 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
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 20% · 2018 23% · 2019 29% · 2020 49% · 2021 56% · 2022 38% · 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
53% of THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 69% 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
77% of THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY's grant income comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $5.3M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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 NEWBERRY LIBRARY's funding base is broadening — from 30 funders to 67 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,615 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $4.2M on record — $4.2M federal, $25k state.
- National Endowment for the Humanities$3.9M
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$185k
- National Endowment for the Arts$145k
- Membership in Organizations$25k
- Royalties$608
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 NEWBERRY LIBRARY
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 Illinois
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
65% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
66%
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 NEWBERRY LIBRARY: 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 NEWBERRY LIBRARY?
- THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY (Illinois) receives grants from 135 organizations whose IRS filings report $22,731,662 to it, the largest being Harold B Smith Foundation ($5,008,864). 93 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY have?
- IRS filings report 135 organizations giving $22,731,662 in grants to THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY, 93 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY?
- Harold B Smith Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $5,008,864 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Illinois. 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 Newberry Library →
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 135 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