Maryland · Nonprofit
The Witness Institute
The Witness Institute (Maryland) receives grants from 11 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,292,511 to it, the largest being THE ELIE WIESEL FOUNDATION INC ($477,500). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $316k
- Funders on record
- 11
- Grants received
- $1.3M
- Net assets
- $-53483
What The Witness Institute does
Mission
The Witness Institute, founded by Rabbi Dr. Ariel Burger and Elisha Wiesel, works to foster a new movement of creative, powerful, and highly effective moral education. (Continued on Schedule O)
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
The Witness Fellowship: The Witness Fellowship trains the next generation of emerging leaders in the approach of Nobel laureate, author, and human rights activist Elie Wiesel. In 2023 we grew our community of Fellows from 28 to 38, supported new connections between and among cohorts, and supported each Fellow to develop a project to translate what theyve learned into impact in their communities. We held our annual in-person retreat in August, where we deepened our work together with a combination of study, practices, discussion, and storytelling. We also offered all cohort programs special guest speakers, and began to offer some alumni key contract professional roles to support our work.
$273,127 spent60% of program spendingWitness Toolkit Website: We continued to develop our new website to serve as a digital repository for our content, so that our community of Fellows, alumni, advisors, and program partners can access the texts and tools we have developed over the past several years. We designed the site to serve as well for others seeking accessible, engaging, and effective tools and resources for conversations about contemporary issues, as we explore new public programs.
$185,339 spent40% of program spendingAll other programs and initiatives.
The 3 programs described on its FY2023 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $458,466.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2022, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2022, 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 $127k to $34k (−73%).
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.
100% of The Witness Institute’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (99% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 3 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2022 → 2023: the base broadened from 6 funders to 8 funders, grant income rose $338k → $408k.
6 of 11 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 17% 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 Witness Institute’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 Witness Institute leans on a few funders — its largest provides 37% of grant income and the top three 81%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
53% 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 Witness Institute.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2022 57% · 2023 37% — 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.
Where its funders are
The Witness Institute draws 100% of its grant income from funders outside Maryland, across 4 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $214k 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 Witness Institute's funding base is broadening — from 6 funders to 8 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,798 civil rights nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like The Witness Institute
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 Maryland
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
76% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
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 Witness Institute: 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 Witness Institute?
- The Witness Institute (Maryland) receives grants from 11 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,292,511 to it, the largest being THE ELIE WIESEL FOUNDATION INC ($477,500). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does The Witness Institute have?
- IRS filings report 11 organizations giving $1,292,511 in grants to The Witness Institute, 8 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The Witness Institute?
- THE ELIE WIESEL FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $477,500 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The Witness Institute find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Maryland. 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 Witness Institute →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2022–2024), and the filings of 11 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