Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION
THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 175 organizations whose IRS filings report $20,899,163 to it, the largest being SHERMAN FAIRCHILD FOUNDATION INC ($2,468,890). 101 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $27M
- Funders on record
- 175
- Grants received
- $21M
- Net assets
- $125M
What The Phillips Collection does
Mission
The Phillips Collection is the oldest museum of modern and contemporary art in the u.s. In addition to presentation of works from the permanent collection and special exhibitions, the museum maintains active educational, academic, (continued on schedule o)and public programs, and numerous partnerships with other d.c. Arts organizations, embassies, and educational institutions. The phillips takes pride in its heritage as an intimate museum combined with an experiment station.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Development and presentation of special exhibitions including works from the museum's own holdings, loans from individuals and other institutions, and collaborations with other venues. Highlights from fy25 include where we meet, a look at the overlapping institutional histories between the howard university gallery of art and The Phillips Collection, revealing an early and evolving relationship developed through a common interest in collecting, stewardship, and providing access to art; up close with paul cezanne, an unveiling of two recently conserved works by paul cezanne, mont sainte-victoire (1886-87) and self-portrait (1878-80), viewed in the context of five other works by cezanne; multiplicity: blackness in contemporary american collage, which celebrated the broad variety and complexity of black identity through experimental techniques, offering poignant expressions of human experience, including fragmentation and reconstruction, shared history and memory, cultural hybridity, gender fluidity, and notions of beauty; william gropper: artist of the people, a presentation featuring more than 30 works that reveal the artist's biting commentary on human rights, anarchy, labor,…
$4,805,232 spent$629,710 earned by the program37% of program spendingManagement and maintenance of the museum's permanent collection of nearly 6,000 works. When the museum opened to the public in 1921 as the nation's first museum of modern and contemporary art, the collection comprised over 200 works acquired by duncan phillips. Our new acquisitions, arriving through both gift and purchase, reflect the museum's efforts to continue phillips's legacy with works that deepen or introduce new global voices into our collection while enriching the narrative of modern and contemporary art. Our displays of the permanent collection have built meaningful connections with communitiesfrom local to international. Notable acquisitions include works by rush baker iv, martin creed, henri matisse, and george segal. Commensurate activities incorporated ongoing conservation efforts to (continued on schedule o)preserve and protect the growing collection, and the continuance of collection digitization for publications and presentation on the museum's website, artstor, google arts & culture, and the multi-museum app bloomberg connects. Moreover, the high quality of works in the collection presented many opportunities for collaboration with other museums both for…
$3,025,674 spent$577,278 earned by the program23% of program spendingThe Phillips Collection engaged with audiences through onsite programs including member art tours, exhibition openings, and others. Through thoughtfully curated performances, phillips music, the museum's concert series, continues to present an outstanding program of concerts, showcasing a culturally diverse range of artists and musical styles. The season highlighted both emerging and established musicians, featuring compositions celebrating artistic excellence while fostering connections between music and visual art. We were able to offer a full guest experience with amenities including our caf which is operated by a beloved local bakery, and a gift shop which continues to be one of the best museum shops in the world. We connected with both current and potential members and visitors through (continued on schedule o)our website, social media, e-newsletters, local and regional marketing and advertising, and our participation in the bloomberg connects app. Our dynamic and popular 1st thursday program, phillips after five, and our 3rd thursday free evenings appeal to a wide demographic. We continue to offer our museum as a unique and captivating location for external events throughout…
$2,921,062 spent$614,388 earned by the program23% of program spendingThe phillips presented a broad range of programming designed to appeal to the museum's expanding visitor demographic. Education programs help audiences see, create, and engage with art in new and unexpected ways. We gave 875 guided tours and spotlights talks to 6,859 guests. The phillips provides in-depth professional development opportunities on arts integration using the museum's collection and online resources. Professional development opportunities feature artworks from the phillips's special exhibitions and permanent collection and focus on prism.k12, the museum's arts integration strategies and model for culturally responsive teaching (https://www.phillipscollection.org/ prismk12-strategies). Professional development sessions are designed for teachers to easily integrate ideas and activities into their classrooms, and they may take place at the museum, at area schools, or virtually. In 2023-2024, the museum reached 712 teachers through 27 professional development sessions, which included three-hour sessions, fifteen-hour multi-week programs, and a weeklong summer teacher institute. Additionally, the museum has over 50 online lesson plans available through their website that…
$2,125,151 spent$145,298 earned by the program17% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $12,877,119.
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 $116M to $134M (+16%).
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 1% · 2020 10% · 2021 13% · 2022 15% · 2023 11% · 2024 5% · 2025 2%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
38% of THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (58% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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.
Chief executive
Jonathan Binstock
Vradenburg director & CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 49 funders to 75 funders, grant income rose $1.3M → $2.9M.
26 of 175 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 29% 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 PHILLIPS COLLECTION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 175 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 PHILLIPS COLLECTION has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 12% of grant income, and it takes 9 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 9 funders to its left
30% 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 PHILLIPS COLLECTION.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 17% · 2018 19% · 2019 32% · 2020 33% · 2021 18% · 2022 22% · 2023 19% — 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
48% of THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 58% 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 PHILLIPS COLLECTION draws 87% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 28 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $6.0M arriving through sponsors registered in 17 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 PHILLIPS COLLECTION runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 570 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 570 arts & culture nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.1M on record.
- Institute of Museum and Library Services$484k
- National Endowment for the Humanities$476k
- National Endowment for the Arts$160k
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 PHILLIPS COLLECTION
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 Washington, D.C.
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
74% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
77%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 27 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION: 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 PHILLIPS COLLECTION?
- THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 175 organizations whose IRS filings report $20,899,163 to it, the largest being SHERMAN FAIRCHILD FOUNDATION INC ($2,468,890). 101 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION have?
- IRS filings report 175 organizations giving $20,899,163 in grants to THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION, 101 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION?
- SHERMAN FAIRCHILD FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $2,468,890 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Washington, D.C.. 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 Phillips Collection →
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 175 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