How do I find funders for a large environment nonprofit?

Start with the funders most focused on large environment organizations, currently Ducks Unlimited Inc Group Return, Sierra Club Foundation, The Uli Foundation. Donor-advised funds and mega-funds are excluded, so these are funders that genuinely back organizations your size, not pass-through accounts.

How much grant money goes to large environment organizations?

$25.3B reached 1,422 large environment organizations from 15,828 funders. Money parked in the regranting layer is netted out.

How recent is this data?

It is read from IRS Form 990 and 990-PF e-file filings across recent fiscal years. US charity filings lag 12 to 24 months.

Causes · Environment · large

Who funds large environment organizations

The funders that back large environment organizations are specialists, not generalists: Ducks Unlimited Inc Group Return gives them 36.9× the national rate, with 100% of its grants going here. Large environment institutions draw a deep funder base, 11 on average, so the competition for their attention is intense.

$25.3B

granted

1,422

organizations

15,828

funders

The short version

15,828 funders gave $25.3B to 1,422 large environment organizations (large ($10M and up)) across recent IRS filings.
The most focused funder is Ducks Unlimited Inc Group Return, giving 36.9× the national rate to large environment organizations.
The largest non-DAF funder is Sierra Club Foundation, at $699M.
The large environment organization drawing the most is The Nature Conservancy, at $1.8B.

Funders most focused on large environment organizations

Not the biggest checks, the most committed: each gives this size and cause an outsized share of its budget against the national rate, shrunk toward that rate so a small specialist needs real volume to rank.

Ducks Unlimited Inc Group Return36.9×$452M · 100% of its giving Sierra Club Foundation36.6×$699M · 99% of its giving The Uli Foundation35.7×$75M · 100% of its giving Greenpeace Fund Inc35.5×$67M · 100% of its giving Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Foundation34.9×$46M · 100% of its giving Holden Arboretum Trust34.2×$34M · 100% of its giving Nextgen Education Fund33.8×$30M · 100% of its giving Sea Change Foundation32.9×$249M · 90% of its giving

Largest funders by dollars

Real grantmakers giving the most to large environment organizations (donor-advised and mega-funds excluded).

1Sierra Club Foundation$699M 2The Bloomberg Family Foundation Inc$587M 3National Fish and Wildlife Foundation$513M 4Ducks Unlimited Inc Group Return$452M 5The David and Lucile Packard Foundation$427M 6Climate Imperative Foundation$427M 7Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation$415M 8Waverley Street Foundation$354M

Large environment organizations that draw the most

Sized by grant dollars received. Pick one to see exactly who funds it.

1,412 other large environment organizations$16B

The Nature Conservancy$1.8B Environmental Defense Fund Incorporated$1.2B

Questions and answers

How do I find funders for a large environment nonprofit?: Start with the funders most focused on large environment organizations, currently Ducks Unlimited Inc Group Return, Sierra Club Foundation, The Uli Foundation. Donor-advised funds and mega-funds are excluded, so these are funders that genuinely back organizations your size, not pass-through accounts.
What counts as a large organization here?: Size is the organization's median total revenue across its filings: large ($10M and up). Cause is where each grant is placed by its stated purpose and the recipient's mission, falling back to the recipient's IRS activity category where that is unclear.
How much grant money goes to large environment organizations?: $25.3B reached 1,422 large environment organizations from 15,828 funders. Money parked in the regranting layer is netted out.
How recent is this data?: It is read from IRS Form 990 and 990-PF e-file filings across recent fiscal years. US charity filings lag 12 to 24 months.

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home

State money flows

the interactive map of money crossing state lines

Size is median total revenue; each grant is placed by its stated purpose and the recipient's mission, falling back to the recipient's IRS activity category where that is unclear. Read from IRS Form 990 and 990-PF e-file XML across recent fiscal years, among (c)(3) funders and recipients resolved by EIN, with the regranting layer netted out. Source: IRS Form 990 downloads.