Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC
WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 118 organizations whose IRS filings report $18,386,278 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($2,224,000). 79 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $28M
- Funders on record
- 118
- Grants received
- $18M
- Net assets
- $117M
What Washington Drama Society Inc does
Mission
Encouragement of public interest in the arts, particularly in drama; providing instruction and experience in, and the facilities for, experimentation and development of the composition and presentation of drama and performing arts; and improvement of the standards of performance of the foregoing by education, research and experimentation.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
The 2024-2025 season marked hana s. Sharif's second year as artistic director of arena stage. Founded in 1950, arena stage is the voice of american theater resident in our nation's capital. We produce all that is passionate, exuberant, profound, entertaining, deep and dangerous in the american spirit. Arena produced and presented ten shows, including six world premieres, while continuing to provide robust community engagement programs. The season included: jaja's african hair braiding (kreeger theater) by jocelyn bioh, directed by whitney white; the other americans (fichandler stage), written by & starring john leguizamo, directed by ruben santiago-hudson; data (kogod cradle) by matthew libby, directed by margot bordelon; death on the nile (kreeger theater) by agatha christie adapted for the stage by ken ludwig, directed by hana s. Sharif; step afrika!'s magical musical holiday step show (fichandler stage) by step afrika!; sarah silverman's the bedwetter book by joshua harmon & sarah silverman, music by adam schlesinger, lyrics by adam schlesinger & sarah silverman, based upon the bedwetter: stories of courage, redemption, and pee by sarah silverman, additional music & lyrics by…
$25,826,319 spent$12,845,700 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $25,826,319.
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 2017 to 2018, from $190M to $154M (−19%).
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 1% · 2018 1% · 2019 2% · 2020 5% · 2021 22% · 2022 56% · 2023 11% · 2024 1% · 2025 23%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
52% of WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC’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.
Board chair
Catherine Guttman-Mccabe
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 25 funders to 57 funders, grant income rose $1.2M → $2.3M.
21 of 118 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 34% 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 WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 118 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
WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 12% of grant income, and it takes 6 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 6 funders to its left
40% 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 WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 48% · 2018 30% · 2019 28% · 2020 27% · 2021 23% · 2022 17% · 2023 17% — 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
49% of WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 67% 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
WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC draws 78% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 22 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $6.2M arriving through sponsors registered in 13 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
WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC's funding base is broadening — from 25 funders to 57 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 570 arts & culture nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $330k on record.
- National Endowment for the Arts$220k
- Department of State$110k
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 WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY 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 Washington, D.C.
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
86% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
91%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY 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 WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC?
- WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 118 organizations whose IRS filings report $18,386,278 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($2,224,000). 79 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC have?
- IRS filings report 118 organizations giving $18,386,278 in grants to WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC, 79 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC?
- NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $2,224,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WASHINGTON DRAMA SOCIETY INC 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 Washington Drama Society →
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 118 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