Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts federal obligations

Six awards, not a season calendar

The Kennedy Center’s public identity is performances, tours, and education programs on the Potomac. USAspending does not count ticketed events. It records awards the Center made that entered the federal warehouse. $15,472,762.68 through FY2026 is that obligation stock, and it is carried on only 6 awards. Dividing $15,472,762.68 by 6 yields about $2,578,794 per award—a high mean on a six-row book.

A six-row book is fragile as a summary. One modification, one closeout, or one newly reported vehicle can swing the agency total more than a thousand small grants would at an endowment. Readers who need vendor names have a short list to open on USAspending.gov; this roll-up will not hide them among hundreds of instruments.

What $15.5 million does not capture

The Center’s financing historically mixes federal appropriations with ticket revenue, gifts, and other non-award funds. This packet does not split those sources. Private sponsorships that never become federal awards will not appear among the 6 rows. Federal employee or resident-company pay that never becomes an award will not appear either. The $15,472,762.68 is complete as a USAspending awarding-agency total for CGAC 3301; it is incomplete as an audited picture of the Center’s operations.

Outlays are unpublished. A large facilities or systems instrument can sit as an obligation before invoices are paid. Treat the figure as commitments, not as cash already spent on a renovation or a season.

FY2026 cutoff on a concentrated book

Fiscal year 2026 is the latest year on the packet. The $15,472,762.68 is cumulative through that horizon, not a single-year appropriation for the Center. Because there are only 6 awards, the vintage of those instruments matters more than it would on a high-volume grant catalog. A vehicle signed years earlier can still dominate the running total if it remains open in the warehouse.

This page does not name the 6 awards. The packet has no award IDs. Open the agency table for the live rows.

CGAC 3301

Kennedy Center rows use awarding-agency code 3301. SpendingVault’s /agencies/3301/ path is keyed to it. Other cultural institutions in USAspending use other CGACs; their dollars are not inside these 6 awards. Code 3301 is an identifier, not a performance-hall seat map.

State tables when almost every dollar is a few rows

With 6 awards, the state table can look almost binary: one or two jurisdictions may hold nearly all of the $15,472,762.68 depending on how USAspending filled location fields. That is not a touring map of the National Symphony. It is vendor and place-of-performance geography on a handful of instruments.

Open the Kennedy Center agency page for the live $15,472,762.68 and 6-award filters. Use the all-agencies directory to find CGAC 3301. Dollar rank against a high-volume grant-maker measures different missions and different award structures.

Season calendars, gifts, and why six rows dominate the mean

Ticketed performances and education programs are the Center’s public calendar. They are not the 6 USAspending awards. A sold-out season can leave $15,472,762.68 unchanged. A facilities or systems vehicle can dominate the mean of about $2,578,794 because the denominator is six. One modification is the whole story of this book in a way it would not be on a high-volume grant catalog.

Private sponsorships and ticket revenue that never become federal awards stay off this table. The packet does not split appropriated versus other dollars. The $15.5 million is complete as an awarding-agency total for CGAC 3301 in this extract; it is incomplete as an audited picture of the Center’s operations.

With 6 awards, the state table can look almost binary. One or two jurisdictions may hold nearly all of the dollars depending on location fields. That is not a touring map. FY2026 is the cutoff. Refresh the Kennedy Center agency page after warehouse updates. Outlays on a large instrument can lag invoices. Keep this CGAC unmerged with other cultural awarding agencies.

Education concerts and touring programs can expand while the 6-award book stays still, because those activities may be funded outside USAspending awards. Conversely, a single facilities vehicle can dominate $15,472,762.68. Readers should open the live six-row table rather than trusting the mean of about $2,578,794 as a typical project. FY2026 is the cutoff. Use the Kennedy Center agency page for CGAC 3301. Gifts that never became federal awards remain outside this extract. Outlays on a large instrument can lag.

Questions

How much has the Kennedy Center obligated on USAspending?

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts shows $15,472,762.68 in obligations through FY2026 across 6 awards. Awarding-agency CGAC 3301 is the filter. The total is not ticket revenue and not a count of performances. USAspending.gov records this as awarding-agency obligations through FY2026, not cash outlays. The live table for CGAC 3301 is the source for the current 6-award book.

Why are there only 6 Kennedy Center awards?

The extract counts 6 instruments for CGAC 3301. Dividing $15,472,762.68 by that count yields about $2,578,794 per award. Concentration in a few large vehicles is the structure of this book. The packet has no median and no award IDs. That figure uses only the packet totals. The extract has no median and no contract-versus-assistance split. FY2026 is the warehouse cutoff, not a single-year appropriation.

What is agency code 3301?

3301 is the USAspending awarding-agency CGAC identifier for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. SpendingVault uses it in /agencies/3301/. Other cultural agencies use different codes. SpendingVault URLs under the agency path filter to that CGAC identifier. It is an accounting tag, not a quality score. Totals on this page are obligations through FY2026.

Does $15.5 million include private donations?

Only if those funds were issued as federal awards in the USAspending extract. Gifts that never become federal awards are outside the 6-row total. The packet does not split appropriated versus private dollars. Outlays are unpublished. Outlays are unpublished in this packet, so this page does not estimate cash already paid. Refresh the agency page after USAspending updates rather than treating the current stock as frozen.