· Public charity
American Ornithological Society
See schedule othe AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY (aos) is an international membership organization that connects ornithologists, science, and bird conservation by supporting science that advances the understanding and conservation of birds, promoting broad access to ornithological science, supporting ornithologists throughout their…
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 4 grants below total $57,100 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $350,219 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $293,119 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k2 grants · $12k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $45k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF SPONSORED PROGRAMS | $30,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA | $15,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT | $7,100 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO | $5,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 78% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
Grants abroad, by region — $84k on the FY2024 return
Schedule F, as filed: 5 regions, $25k to organizations and $58k to individuals. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.
Stated purpose: RESEARCH GRANTS SUPPORTING STUDENT AOS MEMBERS BASED ON THE QUALITY OF THE RESEARCH AS DESCRIBED ON THEIR APPLICATION · MEWALDT-KING MEMORIAL RESEARCH GRANTS SUPPORT GRADUATE STUDENT AOS MEMBERS BASED ON THE QUALITY OF THE RESEARCH AS DESCRIBED IN THEIR APPLICATION · RESEARCH GRANTS SUPPORTING STUDENT AOS MEMBERS BASED ON THE QUALITY OF THE RESEARCH AS DESCRIBED IN THEIR APPLICATION
Stated purpose: RESEARCH GRANTS SUPPORTING STUDENT AOS MEMBERS BASED ON THE QUALITY OF THE RESEARCH AS DESCRIBED IN THEIR APPLICATION · WILLIAM BREWSTER MEMORIAL AWARD RECOGNIZES THE MOST MERITORIOUS BODY OF WORK ON BIRDS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE PUBLISHED DURING THE PAST TEN YEARS · CAREGIVER GRANTS ENABLE MEMBER ATTENDANCE AT AOS ANNUAL MEETING BY DEFRAYING DEPENDENT CAREGIVING COSTS
Stated purpose: WESLEY LANYON AWARD RECOGNIZES THE EARLY CAREER ORNITHOLOGIST WHO AUTHORS THE BEST INTEGRATIVE PAPER ON AVIAN SCIENCE IN EITHER OF THE TWO AOS JOURNALS · STUDENT TRAVEL GRANTS SUPPORT ANNUAL MEETING ATTENDANCE FOR STUDENT MEMBERS
Stated purpose: STUDENT TRAVEL GRANTS SUPPORT ANNUAL MEETING ATTENDANCE FOR STUDENT MEMBERS
Stated purpose: STUDENT TRAVEL GRANTS SUPPORT ANNUAL MEETING ATTENDANCE FOR STUDENT MEMBERS · TRAVEL GRANTS TO SUPPORT MEETING ATTENDANCE BY INDIVIDUALS FROM UNDERREPRESENTED GROUPS OR THOSE WHO ARE FROM, RESIDE OR STUDY IN LATIN AMERICA OR THE CARIBBEAN
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving. Grants abroad on Schedule F are filed by region, purpose and amount with no recipient name, so they are shown by region and cannot be placed on the country map or matched to a grantee.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +46% since the first grant, against +45% for the ones you funded once.
4 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
Cornell University3× · 2020–2023 · $38k · revenue +46%- LSLOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY2× · 2020–2024 · $38k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA2× · 2022–2024 · $23k
Funded once
- CPCAL POLY HUMBOLDT SPONSORED PROGRAMS FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $15k · revenue +45%
- BOBOARD OF REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKAone grant, 2020 · $15k
- UOUniversity of Wisconsin Madisonone grant, 2020 · $15k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
4 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 4 of the 9 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization American Ornithological Society funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.
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How do I get to American Ornithological Society?
Find your warmest path to American Ornithological Society through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.