Massachusetts · Nonprofit
The Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc
The Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc (Massachusetts) receives grants from 25 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,886,114 to it, the largest being MAPPING BOSTON FOUNDATION INC ($3,506,701). 10 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.8M
- Funders on record
- 25
- Grants received
- $4.9M
- Net assets
- $5.1M
What The Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc does
Mission
The Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library shall inspire curiosity and learning, and foster geographic perspectives on the relationships between people and places, through free and accessible collections and resources, critical interpretation and research, and K-12 public education.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Collections: The Center stewards the cartographic collections of the Boston Public Library, encompassing a quarter million maps and other objects, ensuring the preservation, cataloging, organization and digitization of the collection. Areas of particular strength are our four "Collections of Distinction": Boston & New England, the American Revolutionary era, urban maps and maritime maps. Public access is a major part of our mission and we offer reference services for the collection including assistance in geographic information services (GIS) and support fellowships to carry out research in the collection to develop new scholarship.The Center also has an extensive digital resources available on our website for public and educational use, increasing access to our collections and educational materials. Our digital collection includes 12,000 digitized maps including our American Revolutionary War era cross-institutional collection of more than 2,000 digitized maps from partner institutions such as the British Library and Library of Congress. Many digitized maps have been georeferenced, enabling overlays of modern maps, and some are also mosaicked and tiled to enhance digital access.…
$317,159 spent$12,700 earned by the program33% of program spendingExhibitions and Public Outreach: The Center has presented 26 exhibitions since 2004. Exhibitions have traveled to New York, Washington DC, and Williamsburg as well as to other locations within the city of Boston. Showcasing items from the collection, exhibitions have highlighted such important subjects as the Revolutionary War and Civil War periods, 19th and 20th century immigration, voting patterns and rights, women's role in cartography, mapping of climate patterns, urban green spaces and U.S. westward expansion in the 19th century. Audiences upwards of 60,000 attend each gallery exhibition, including area residents, library patrons, tourists, researchers, students and teachers.All exhibitions are accompanied by a series of lectures and panel discussions with scholars and authors that explore themes related to the exhibition, with emphasis on relevance to contemporary issues. In addition, local micro-history and geography are explored in community events that use our Atlascope tool. Community partnerships add breadth and depth to both public and educational program offerings, including partnerships with faculty from area universities, and staff of municipal and non-profit…
$470,848 spent49% of program spendingEducation Outreach: The Center is recognized as a national leader in innovative education programs that use cartographic materials and methods. Our K-12 programs are based in best practices for primary sources and inquiry-based teaching and fulfill local and national standards. These programs harness the power of maps and mapping to make a broad range of topics come alive in the K-12 classroom and onsite. The center offers professional development for educators via institutes, workshops and fellowships. We develop map sets and curriculum materials, often in collaboration with teacher advisors and fellows. Our online resources include a wide variety of maps sets, lesson plans and tools to help teacher use maps effectively in their classrooms. (Continued on Schedule O)Half of our educational service is to the Boston public schools, and to these and to other schools in need, education programs are offered free of charge.
$169,629 spent$2,492 earned by the program18% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $957,636.
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 2023 to 2024, from $3.9M to $4.7M (+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: 2018 14% · 2020 6% · 2021 11% · 2022 23% · 2023 18% · 2024 48% · 2025 49%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
91% of The Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc’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. 1 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.
Board chair
Charles L Cooney PhD
Board Member, Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 11 funders to 7 funders, grant income fell $1.2M → $490k.
6 of 25 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 10% 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 Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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 Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc leans on a few funders — its largest provides 72% of grant income and the top three 87%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 34% · 2018 69% · 2019 93% · 2020 94% · 2021 73% · 2022 87% · 2023 84% — 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
11% of The Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 40% 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
96% of The Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc's grant income comes from Massachusetts funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $510k arriving through sponsors registered in 5 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 Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 9,398 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,398 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding The Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.1M on record.
- National Endowment for the Humanities$531k
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$301k
- National Archives and Records Administration$229k
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 Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center 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 Massachusetts
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
71% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
72%
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 Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center 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 Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc?
- The Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc (Massachusetts) receives grants from 25 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,886,114 to it, the largest being MAPPING BOSTON FOUNDATION INC ($3,506,701). 10 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does The Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc have?
- IRS filings report 25 organizations giving $4,886,114 in grants to The Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc, 10 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc?
- MAPPING BOSTON FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $3,506,701 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Inc find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Massachusetts. 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 Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center →
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 25 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