DHC was founded with the financial support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Major funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities supported the DHC's Access initiative. Other funders of the DHC Access initiative included the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; Greenwall Foundation; H.W. Wilson Foundation; Limited Foundation; Louisa Stude Sarofim; Mary Duke Biddle Foundation; and the Capezio/Ballet Makers Foundation. The Gladys Kreible Delmas Foundation contributed to the access initiative as well as toward the creation of the World Wide Web site and the DHC finding aids.

During the past several years, support for the DHC's initiatives include The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR); Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; The David and Lucile Packard Foundation; Pew Charitable Trusts through its grant program, the National Initiative to Preserve America's Dance; the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; Philip Morris Companies; "Save America's Treasures," a public-private partnership between the White House Millennium Council and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, administered by the National Park Service; and the Capezio/Ballet Makers Foundation, Inc.