How much does Bobolink Foundation give?

Bobolink Foundation reported 44 grants totaling $19,790,736 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 43 and 57 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does Bobolink Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Environment (75%), Animals (13%), Education (4%).

Who are Bobolink Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Rainforest Trust ($10M), Rewild ($7.3M), Rare ($6.1M).

Does Bobolink Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 60% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Bobolink Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Bobolink Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Patagoniaorg, The Nature Conservancy.

Where is Bobolink Foundation based?

Bobolink Foundation is based in IL.

Bobolink Foundation

Bobolink Foundation at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· Private foundation

Bobolink Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$20M

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$7.0M

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Environment$87MAnimals$15MEducation$5.2MArts & Culture$3.7MPhilanthropy$2.4MSocial Science$2.0MInternational$360kCommunity Improvement$105kOther$0

02FY2024 · 44 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k8 grants · $40k
$10k–50k17 grants · $280k
$50k–250k11 grants · $1.2M
$250k+8 grants · $18M

$30,000

Median grant

States reached

$263M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
Rainforest Trust	$7,000,000
The Nature Conservancy	$7,000,000
Re Wild	$2,250,000
New Venture Fund	$685,736
Friends of the Forest Preserves	$450,000
Friends of BirdLife International Inc	$305,000
Oregon Desert Land Trust	$280,000
One Hundred Miles	$275,000
Osa Conservation	$200,000
The Field Museum	$200,000
American Bird Conservancy	$150,000
Borderlands Restoration Network	$150,000
The Orianne Society	$135,000
Bird Conservancy of the Rockies	$115,000
Openlands	$75,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY21–21, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 25% of Bobolink Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.

Bobolink Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 9.1% directed abroad (not shown)

How this is measured

Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

90%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$78M · 61 repeat orgs$8.8M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +59% since the first grant, against +41% for those funded once.

61 repeat relationships: 34 still active in FY2024, 27 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$78M

$8.4M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+59%

+41%

Still filing today

87%

37%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $465k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

EnvironmentAnimalsArts & CultureEducationRecreation & SportsInternationalOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

RT
RAINFOREST TRUST
2× · 2020–2024 · $10M · revenue +54% · 38% of their budget
REWILD
3× · 2022–2024 · $7.3M · revenue +18%
R
RARE
6× · 2017–2022 · $6.1M · revenue +30%

Funded once

NC
Nature Conservancy of Canada
one grant, 2022 · $2.0M
TP
THE PAULSON INSTITUTE
one grant, 2017 · $2.0M
RW
Re wild
one grant, 2023 · $711k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Cascadia Wildlands

Cascadia wildlands defends and restores cacasia's wild ecosystems in the forests,in the courts, and in the streets. we envision vast old-growth forests, rivers full of wild salmon, wolves howling in the backcountry, a stable climate, and…

Environment

Wildlife Conservation Network Inc

Connect conservationists and supporters, deploy resources to the field, provide conservationists with tools and support they need to succeed.

Animals

Int'l Union for Conservation of Nature & Natural Resources - Us

Iucn-us fund builds bridges between us donors and iucn by catalyzing, accelerating, funding and promoting iucn's work - conserving nature and natural resources in the united states and throughout the world.

Environment

Conservation Farms & Ranches

Preserving and enhancing the habitat of wildlife, such as sandhill cranes, waterfowl, raptors, which habitat expenses are supported by agricultural activities.

Housing & Shelter

Washington Forest Law Center

Dedicated to protecting the world's natural environment on behalf of the public by serving as a public interest law firm. refer to schedule o, part iii, line 4a, for list of litigated cases or advocacy work.

—

Rainforest Foundation Inc

The purpose of rainforest foundation us is to support indigenous peoples and forest communities in their efforts to secure their lands, protect their environment, and uphold their rights.

Environment

Wildcoast

The mission of wildcoast is to conserve coastal and marine ecosystems and address climate change through natural solutions. our staff is dedicated to conserving threatened and endangered coastlines and wildlife in california and mexico.…

Environment

Atlantic Coast Conservancy Inc

The mission of the atlantic coast conservancy is to provide 21st century solutions and sound scientific applications for conservation of critical natural resources in the face of a changing climate, focusing on the southeasthern united…

Environment

The Wildlife Society

The wildlife society's mission is to inspire, empower, and enable wildlife professionals to sustain wildlife populations and habitats through science-based management and conservation.

Animals

Defenders of Wildlife

Defenders of Wildlife is a national, nonprofit membership organization dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities.

Animals

Natural Resources Foundation of

To protect wisconsin's lands, waters, and wildlife by providing funding, leading partnerships, and connecting all people with nature.

—

Fauna & Flora International Usa Inc

Our mission is to act to conserve threatened species and ecosystems worldwide, choosing solutions that are sustainable, based on sound science and take into account human needs.

Philanthropy

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory; the most unlike its peers is Wildlife Conservation Society. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

81 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 81 of the 122 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

81/81

Grantees still filing

63/81

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$53,843,265Environment$26,187,232Animals$17,614,234International$10,010,000Education$5,290,000Arts & Culture$3,042,500Recreation & Sports$140,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

National Fish and Wildlife FoundationDC33.2× affinity17 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation · Patagoniaorg · The Nature Conservancy · Walton Family Foundation Inc · The Chicago Community Trust · Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation · Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation · National Audubon Society Inc · The Pew Charitable Trusts · Vanderpoel Conservation Foundation Xxxxx6009 · The Knobloch Family Foundation · Weeden Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Bobolink Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Bobolink Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

3get no government money at all

11report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Bobolink Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Bobolink Foundation 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.

Play a game based on Bobolink’s filings →

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 endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home