How much does Defenders of Wildlife give?

Defenders of Wildlife reported 21 itemized grants totaling $394,210, out of $609,434 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 18 and 32 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Defenders of Wildlife fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Environment (70%), Animals (22%), Education (2%).

Who are Defenders of Wildlife's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: The Wilderness Society ($1.2M), Natural Resources Defense Council Inc ($1.0M), Alaska Wilderness League ($310k).

Does Defenders of Wildlife fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 11% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as Defenders of Wildlife?

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

Where is Defenders of Wildlife based?

Defenders of Wildlife is based in DC.

Defenders of Wildlife

Defenders of Wildlife at a glance Mostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

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.

$609k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$120k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Environment$5.3MAnimals$1.7MEducation$155kCommunity Improvement$135kFood & Nutrition$124kScience & Tech$78kRecreation & Sports$51kArts & Culture$41kOther$0

02FY2025 · 21 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 21 grants below total $394,210, the rows itemized in this filing. The $609,434 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $215,224 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k6 grants · $43k
$10k–50k14 grants · $231k
$50k–250k1 grant · $120k

$13,000

Median grant

States reached

$65M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
County of Dare	$120,114
Aris Land & Livestock LLC	$24,000
The Blackfoot Challenge Inc	$22,000
Southern Plains Land Trust	$21,186
City of Hamilton	$20,110
Tom Miner Basin Association	$19,000
White Mountain Apache Tribe	$18,000
KCK Investments LLC	$18,000
Beaver Institute Inc	$17,500
Rocky Mountain Front Ranchlands Group	$15,000
Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation	$13,000
Wildlife Restoration Foundation	$13,000
University of North Carolina at Asheville	$10,000
LLCJBARL Ranches	$10,000
Watershed Management Group Inc	$10,000

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 (FY22–25, $63k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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 35% of Defenders of Wildlife’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 24% of the giving stays in DC; by stated purpose, 20%.

Defenders of Wildlifelessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 5.1% 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.

80%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$4.6M · 40 repeat orgs$1.1M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +46% since the first grant, against +26% for those funded once.

40 repeat relationships: 13 still active in FY2025, 27 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$4.6M

$929k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+46%

+26%

Still filing today

53%

61%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 46% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $213k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EnvironmentAnimalsArts & CultureEducationCivil RightsHuman ServicesOther

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

TW
THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY
6× · 2017–2023 · $1.2M · revenue +27%
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC
5× · 2017–2021 · $1.0M · revenue +41%
AW
ALASKA WILDERNESS LEAGUE
7× · 2018–2024 · $310k · revenue +13%

Funded once

RM
ROCKY MOUNTAIN WOLF ACTION FUND
one grant, 2020 · $176k
FB
FORT BELKNAP INDIAN COMMUNITY
one grant, 2017 · $136k
HA
Hispanic Access Foundationgraduated
one grant, 2022 · $45k · revenue +87%

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.

World Wildlife Fund Inc

Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)

Environment

Wilderness Conservation Foundation

Environment

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

Wild Landscapes Inc

Wild landscapes, inc. (wli) is dedicated to conserving large and connected landscapes globally significant to wildlife and crucial to local communities. our environmental conservation strategy is to empower communities, conservationists,…

Animals

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.

—

Native Ecosystems Council

Promote wildlife habitat

Environment

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

Resource Renewal Institute

The resource renewal institute facilitates the creation, development and implementation of practical strategies to solve the entire complex environmental problem by addressing it comprehensively.

Environment

Idaho Conservation League Inc

Icl's mission is to create a conservation community and pragmatic, enduring solutions that protect and restore the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the land and wildlife you love.

—

Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation

Jackson hole wildlife foundation advances wildlife conservation driven by science, collaboration, and a community of volunteers.

Animals

Climate Conservation Dba Center for Large Landscape Conservation

We bring science, policy, and proven solutions directly to communities working to restore the integrity and natural connectivity of the landscapes in which they live. (see schedule o)

Environment

Wyoming Wildlife Advocates

To promote science-based wildlife management that fosters ecosystem health and dynamic equilibrium between species throughout the state of wyoming.

Animals

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Wilderness Society; the most unlike its peers is Badger Creek Corporation. 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

62 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

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 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 62 of the 106 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)

61/62

Grantees still filing

41/62

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$3,723,206Environment$3,160,543Animals$367,221Food & Nutrition$114,333Arts & Culture$94,745Human Services$62,500Education$25,000

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 FoundationDC52.5× affinity33 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation · The Nature Conservancy · Patagoniaorg · The Wilderness Society · First Nations Development Institute · National Audubon Society Inc · Natural Resources Defense Council Inc · Resources Legacy Fund · The New-Land Foundation Inc · American Rivers Inc · World Wildlife Fund Inc · The Kendeda Fund

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 Defenders of Wildlife funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Defenders of Wildlife. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

5get no government money at all

5report 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.

Play a game based on Defenders of Wildlife’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