· Public charity
California State Parks Foundation
CALIFORNIA STATE PARKS FOUNDATION is an independent, member-supported nonprofit dedicated to protecting and preserving the california state park system for the benefit of all.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 14 grants below total $598,318 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $839,174 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $240,856 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 · FY2025
- Under $10k4 grants · $28k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $182k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $75k
- $250k+1 grant · $313k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION | $312,713 |
| COMMITTEE FOR CLEAN WATER NATURAL RESOURCES AND PARKS | $75,000 |
| CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION | $48,748 |
| MALIBU CREEK DOCENTS | $26,600 |
| CENTRAL COAST STATE PARKS ASSOCIATION | $25,000 |
| RANGER FOUNDATION | $19,000 |
| LOS ANGELES RIVER STATE PARK PARTNERS | $18,000 |
| POINT LOBOS FOUNDATION | $15,120 |
| SOUTH YUBA RIVER CITIZEN LEAGUE | $15,000 |
| THE SAN LUIS REY MISSION INDIAN FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| CRYSTAL COVE CONSERVANCY | $7,933 |
| GOLD DISCOVERY PARK ASSOCIATION | $7,602 |
| REDWOOD PARKS CONSERVANCY | $6,894 |
| CHINO HILLS STATE PARK INTERPRETIVE ASSOCIATION | $5,708 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY19–19, $36k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of those 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.
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.
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 +39% since the first grant, against +22% for the ones you funded once.
33 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2025, 21 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $34k 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
- PLPoint Lobos Foundation3× · 2018–2025 · $601k · revenue +39% · 56% of their budget
- LFLiteracy for Environmental Justice4× · 2019–2022 · $242k · revenue +21%
- SASOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEURS (SEE) INC4× · 2017–2023 · $101k · revenue +490%
Funded once
- CDCALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATIONone grant, 2017 · $189k
- ROREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT RIVERSIDEone grant, 2020 · $61k
- MRMOUNTAINS RECREATION & CONSERVATION AUTHORITYone grant, 2017 · $50k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The Official Partner to the Point Reyes National Seashore Since 1964, Point Reyes National Seashore Association focuses on three priorities: Youth Education & access, environmental conservation and building a broad community for the people…
The foundation works with diverse groups representing many interests to acquire and restore critical wildlife habitat and protecting species
Nature collective's mission is to drive a passion for nature for all. we think inclusively and diversely when serving those devoid of nature those who remember nature and want to connect back to it and those who have an affinity with…
Protect, manage and preserve lands and wildlife having unique natural resources and cultural qualities within and near the foothills of the sierra nevada range.
The Elkhorn Slough Foundation's mission is to conserve and restore Elkhorn Slough and its watershed, California's largest tidal salt marsh south of San Francisco Bay. Renowned for its extraordinary biodiversity, Elkhorn Slough features a…
The Wildlands Conservancy's dual mission is to preserve the beauty and biodiversity of the earth and to provide programs so that children may know the wonder and joy of nature.
Sustainable Conservation advances the collaborative stewardship of Californias land, air, and water for the benefit of nature and people. For over three decades, Sustainable Conservation has built coalitions of people with different…
As california state parks' statutory non-profit partner, we have a clear mission - to help strengthen parks and inspire all people to experience these extraordinary places.
At Yosemite Rivers Alliance, we unite conservation and community to protect and restore the three rivers that ?ow through the Yosemite Regionthe Tuolumne, Stanislaus, and Merced.
CSERC protects water, wildlife, and wild places of the Northern Yosemite region.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Coastside State Parks Association and the most unlike its peers is Anahuak Youth Sports Association. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 33 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 14% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
83 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 83 of the 101 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.
- Who funds COASTSIDE STATE PARKS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Point Lobos Foundation ↗
- Who funds Literacy for Environmental Justice ↗
- Who funds SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEURS (SEE) INC ↗
- Who funds COMMITTEE FOR CLEAN WATER NATURAL RESOURCES AND PARKS ↗
- Who funds CRYSTAL COVE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds Sonoma Ecology Center ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES RIVER STATE PARK PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF LAKES FOLSOM AND NATOMA ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES AUDUBON SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds GOLD DISCOVERY PARK ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds California Park and Recreation Society ↗
- Who funds MALIBU CREEK DOCENTS ↗
- Who funds SOUTH YUBA RIVER CITIZENS LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods ↗
- Who funds MENDOCINO WOODLANDS CAMP ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL COAST STATE PARKS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF SANTA CRUZ STATE PARKS ↗
- Who funds THE SURFRIDER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MOUNTAIN PARKS FOUNDATION OF SANTA CRUZ ↗
- Who funds BOOSTERS OF OLD TOWN SAN DIEGO STATE HISTORIC PARK ↗
- Who funds AMIGOS DE BOLSA CHICA ↗
- Who funds Friends of China Camp Inc ↗
- Who funds REDWOOD PARKS CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds XERCES SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA WATERFOWL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Nature Nexus Institute ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF SUTTERS FORT INC ↗
- Who funds GIRLVENTURES ↗
- Who funds ANAHUAK YOUTH SPORTS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds California Native Plant Society ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY NATURE CONNECTION ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Parks California · Resources Legacy Fund · Clif Family Foundation · The Joseph and Vera Long Foundation · Save the Redwoods League · Justice Outside · The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment Inc · The San Francisco Foundation · Marin Community Foundation · Liberty Hill Foundation · National Fish and Wildlife Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization California State Parks Foundation 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.
- Xerces Society Inc — 22% of income from government
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.