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Forest Trends Association at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Forest Trends Association

Forest trends works to drive innovation in environmental finance to support resilient ecosystems and communities.

$677k
Granted FY2025still arriving
1
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$297k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
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$1.0M
02FY2025 · 1 grant

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 1 grants below total $297,296, the rows itemized in this filing. The $676,687 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $379,391 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.
$297,296
Median grant
1
States reached
$6.9M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
THE KATOOMBA GROUP INC$297,296
02The need
03

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 95% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%EARTH INNOVATION INSTITUTE: $136k → 10%ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND: $124k → 17%WORLD WILDLIFE FUND: $226k → 14%THE NATURE CONSERVANCY: $49k → 7%WORLD WILDLIFE FUND: $36k → 14%WORLD WILDLIFE FUND: $18k → 14%WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY - WCS: $72k → 14%WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY: $62k → 14%THE KATOOMBA GROUP INC: $297k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.

Grants abroad, by region: $379k on the FY2025 return

Schedule F, as filed: 1 region. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.

South America$379k · 100% · 2 grants

Stated purpose: COMMUNITIES AND TERRITORIAL GOVERNANCE · NATURAL INFRASTRUCTURE WATER SECURITY

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. 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.
03Its field
04the grantee network

6 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.

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

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
6/6
Grantees still filing
4/6
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC: $280,087 · EnvironmentWORLD WILDLIFE FUND INCENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED: $124,409 · EnvironmentENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATEDTHE KATOOMBA GROUP: $297,296 · InternationalTHE KATOOMBA GROUPEarth Innovation Institute: $136,000 · PhilanthropyEarth Innovatio…Wildlife Conservation Society: $133,535 · AnimalsWildlife Conse…THE NATURE CONSERVANCY: $49,000 · Other
Environment$404,496International$297,296Philanthropy$136,000Animals$133,535Other$49,000

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTHE KATOOMBA GROUP: $297,296 over 1y, 100% of budgetWORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC: $280,087 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetEarth Innovation Institute: $136,000 over 1y, 3.2% of budgetWildlife Conservation Society: $133,535 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED: $124,409 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetTHE NATURE CONSERVANCY: $49,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%6%25%56%100%funder's share of their income ↑0%6%13%19%25%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%
    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 6 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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    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