Connecticut · Nonprofit
WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART
WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART (Connecticut) receives grants from 101 organizations whose IRS filings report $14,650,050 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($5,130,984). 69 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $11M
- Funders on record
- 101
- Grants received
- $15M
- Net assets
- $133M
What Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art does
Mission
Holding its collection in trust for all people, the wadsworth atheneum is dedicated to advancing knowledge and inspiring everyone to experience and appreciate excellence in art and culture.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Curating and curatorial research fy2025the museum's curators research, care for, and exhibit collections including paintings, sculptures, decorative arts (furniture, glass, ceramics, and metalwork), works on paper, costume and textiles, and moving image art, ranging in date from antiquity to contemporary and including works from most continents. The wadsworth also lends collection objects to exhibitions around the world. In fy25 we released 28 objects as part of our outgoing loans program.we lend to a host of institutions within the united states and a few in europe, a few are noted below:phillips collection museum of fine arts boston katonah museum of artbucerius kunst forumcolumbia museum of artflorence griswold museumfarnsworth art museum palazzo barberinimusee jacquemart-andrethrough purchases, gifts, and bequests the wadsworth acquired works of art including but not limited to works in the contemporary, european, and american collection areas.fy25 exhibition highlights: made in hartfordmatrix 198: steffani jemisondivine geometrypaper, color, line: european master drawingsentre mundosunsettledancient bronzesprints charming: recent gifts and acquisitions
$11,678,365 spent$1,002,779 earned by the program72% of program spendingEducation/visitor experience and servicesthe learning & engagement and visitor experience & services teams help create opportunities for connection, curiosity, and conversation that invite all audiences to participate in the life of the museum. We offer welcoming experiences for people of all ages and backgroundsfrom early learners to lifelong explorers. Gallery talks and tours, music, films, workshops, lectures, and social programs offer engaging, layered perspectives on special exhibitions and familiar favorites. Students from pre-k through grade 12 and beyond deepen their visual literacy skills while making meaningful connections between art and their classroom learning during guided tours. Through family and community programming, we support access to the arts that sparks excitement, encourages creative expression, and fosters a sense of belonging at the wadsworth. With an interdisciplinary approach and a deep commitment to inclusion, we offer many pathways to experience art and culture. In fy25, nearly 40% of our visitors participated in one of our programs.
$3,324,659 spent20% of program spendingOther program expenses: other program expenses include marketing, public relations, membership, museum shop, theater and other miscellaneous.
$1,215,214 spent7% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $16,218,238.
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 $165M to $138M (−17%).
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 2% · 2018 0% · 2019 4% · 2020 1% · 2021 6% · 2022 15% · 2023 2% · 2024 6% · 2025 10%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
50% of WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART’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. 7 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
Jeffrey N Brown
President, CEO & ex-officio trustee
Board chair
Duffield Ashmead Iv
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 27 funders to 43 funders, grant income rose $861k → $1.8M.
9 of 101 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 37% 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: $5.7M from 6 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Hartford Foundation for Public Giving). These are real filings, and they are not money WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART raised.
From the IRS filings of WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 101 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
WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART leans on a few funders — its largest provides 35% of grant income and the top three 60%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
44% 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 WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 63% · 2018 66% · 2019 38% · 2020 26% · 2021 41% · 2022 26% · 2023 31% — 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
55% of WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 68% 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
WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART draws 60% of its grant income from funders outside Connecticut, across 17 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $5.5M 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
WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART is better cushioned than half of the 550 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 550 arts & culture nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $3.0M on record — $122k federal, $2.9M state.
- National Endowment for the Arts$114k
- National Endowment for the Humanities$8k
- State Aid Grants$1.6M
- Pass thru Grant Non-State$1.3M
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 WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART
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 Connecticut
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
84% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
64%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 2 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART: 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 WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART?
- WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART (Connecticut) receives grants from 101 organizations whose IRS filings report $14,650,050 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($5,130,984). 69 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART have?
- IRS filings report 101 organizations giving $14,650,050 in grants to WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART, 69 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $5,130,984 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Connecticut. 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 Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art →
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 101 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