How much does John Sage Foundation give?

John Sage Foundation reported 27 grants totaling $161,500 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 12 and 20 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does John Sage Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Environment (73%), Animals (8%), Science & Tech (4%).

Who are John Sage Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Midcoast Conservancy ($49k), Friends of Baxter State Park ($32k), Frenchman Bay Conservancy ($26k).

Does John Sage Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 50% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does John Sage Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as John Sage Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Davis Conservation Foundation, Maine Community Foundation Inc, Onion Foundation.

Where is John Sage Foundation based?

John Sage Foundation is based in ME.

Foundation Dossiers

Maine · Private foundation

John Sage Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$162k
Granted FY2025(still arriving): 27
Grants FY2025: 18
Organizations funded FY2024: 50%
First-time grantees FY2024

Read the full brief

Median grant, FY2025: $5,000
Largest grant, FY2025: $10,000
Organizations funded a year: 12 to 20; FY2018 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025: 2
Total assets, FY2025: $3.6M
Applications: Takes unsolicited applications; Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 50% of the organizations John Sage Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 50% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 50% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $47k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EnvironmentAnimalsEducationArts & CultureScience & TechHealthOther

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.

The numbers by year

Fiscal year	Organizations funded	To those organizations	First-time grantees
FY2025still arriving	26	$162k	62%
FY2024	18	$94k	50%
FY2023	17	$102k	24%
FY2022	20	$95k	60%
FY2021	15	$71k	80%
FY2020	16	$73k	50%
FY2019	19	$72k	84%
FY2018	12	$53k	100%

99% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Environment$556kAnimals$60kScience & Tech$32kEducation$24kHuman Services$23kArts & Culture$19kRecreation & Sports$13kHealth$10kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Grantee	Total granted	Years	Share of their budget
Midcoast Conservancy	$49,000	6	1%
Friends of Baxter State Park	$31,500	7	1%
Frenchman Bay Conservancy	$26,300	2	0%
The Allagash Wilderness Waterway Foundation	$23,500	4	7%
The Trust for Public Land	$21,000	3	0%
30 Mile River Watershed Association	$17,500	3	4%
Cobscook Community Learning Center	$17,500	3	1%
Coastal Mountains Land Trust	$17,500	3	0%
Lake Stewards of Maine - Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program	$15,600	3	1%
Northeast Wilderness Trust Corporation	$15,000	2	0%

Show all 78 grantees

All grantees of John Sage Foundation by total granted
Grantee	Total granted	Years	Share of their budget
Midcoast Conservancy	$49,000	6	1%
Friends of Baxter State Park	$31,500	7	1%
Frenchman Bay Conservancy	$26,300	2	0%
The Allagash Wilderness Waterway Foundation	$23,500	4	7%
The Trust for Public Land	$21,000	3	0%
30 Mile River Watershed Association	$17,500	3	4%
Cobscook Community Learning Center	$17,500	3	1%
Coastal Mountains Land Trust	$17,500	3	0%
Lake Stewards of Maine - Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program	$15,600	3	1%
Northeast Wilderness Trust Corporation	$15,000	2	0%
Marine Mammals of Maine	$13,750	2	2%
Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences	$13,500	2	0%
Kennebec Estuary Land Trust	$12,700	3	0%
Blue Hill Heritage Trust	$12,500	2	1%
Forest Society of Maine	$12,500	2	0%
Downeast Salmon Federation	$12,500	2	1%
Greater Lovell Land Trust Inc	$12,000	2	1%
Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust	$10,000	2	3%
Women for Healthy Rural Living	$10,000	4	1%
Somerset Woods Trustees	$10,000	1	0%
High Peaks Alliance	$10,000	1	1%
Maine Coast Heritage Trust	$10,000	2	0%
Sebasticook Regional Land Trust	$10,000	1	5%
Maine Tree Foundation	$9,000	2	1%
Androscoggin Land Trust Inc	$8,000	1	3%
Sanford-Springvale Mousam Way Land Trust	$8,000	1	n/a
Gulf of Maine Research Institute	$8,000	2	0%
Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust Inc	$8,000	1	1%
Wild Seed Project	$7,500	2	1%
Falmouth Conservation Trust Dba Falmouth Land Trust	$7,500	1	1%
Unity Environmental University	$7,500	1	0%
Three Rivers Land Trust	$7,500	1	1%
Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust	$7,000	1	0%
Maine Audubon Society	$6,500	2	0%
China Region Lakes Alliance	$6,500	2	11%
Friends of Lake Winnecook Inc	$6,000	1	n/a
Wabanaki Cultural Preservation Coalition	$5,500	2	1%
Trustees of Saint Joseph's College Saint Joseph's College of Maine	$5,460	1	0%
Arundel Conservation Trust	$5,000	1	n/a
Cape Elizabeth Land Trust	$5,000	1	0%
Inland Woods Trails	$5,000	1	1%
Chebeague & Cumberland Land Trust	$5,000	1	0%
Maine Farmland Trust	$5,000	1	0%
Loon Echo Land Trust Inc	$5,000	1	0%
Viles Arboretum	$5,000	1	n/a
The Kennebec Land Trust	$5,000	1	0%
Friends of Casco Bay	$5,000	1	0%
Downeast Institute for Applied Marine Research and Education Inc	$5,000	1	0%
Thompson Lake Environmental Association Inc	$5,000	3	1%
Queerly Me	$5,000	1	5%
Woodie Wheaton Land Trust	$5,000	1	1%
Maine Natural History Observatory	$5,000	1	3%
Maine Rivers	$4,750	1	0%
The Center for Wildlife	$4,500	2	0%
Laudholm Trust	$4,000	1	0%
Bangor Area Storm Water Group Inc	$4,000	1	n/a
Herring Gut Learning Center	$4,000	1	n/a
College of the Atlantic	$4,000	1	0%
York Land Trust	$4,000	1	n/a
Oceanswide Inc	$4,000	1	1%
Maine Council-Atlantic Salmon Federation	$3,500	1	n/a
Kittery Land Trust Inc	$3,500	1	1%
Appalachian Mountain Club	$3,000	1	0%
Georges River Land Trust	$3,000	1	0%
Maine Master Naturalist Program	$3,000	1	n/a
Friends of Wilson Lake	$3,000	1	n/a
Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting	$3,000	1	0%
New England Mineral Association	$2,500	1	n/a
White Pine Programs	$2,500	1	0%
York Ready for Climate Action	$2,500	1	2%
Momentum Conservation	$2,500	1	0%
Medomak Valley Land Trust	$2,500	1	1%
Eastern Trail Alliance	$2,500	1	n/a
St Croix International Waterway Commission	$2,500	1	1%
Atlantic Salmon Federation (US) Inc	$2,000	1	0%
Phippsburg Land Trust	$1,500	1	n/a
Maine Philanthropy Center	$1,230	3	0%
Coyote Center for Carnivore Ecology	$1,000	1	n/a

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 18 recipients with no EIN on record ($120k), not named here.

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget John Sage Foundation supplied at peak.

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured

Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 64.

Nonprofits that may fit its grantmaking

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.

Davis Conservation FoundationME109.8× affinity51 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Davis Conservation Foundation · Maine Community Foundation Inc · Onion Foundation · Morton-Kelly Charitable Trust · Elmina B Sewall Foundation · Quimby Family Foundation · The Nature Conservancy · Momentum Conservation · Fields Pond Foundation Inc · Maine Coast Heritage Trust · Horizon Foundation Inc · Stephen & Tabitha King Foundation Inc

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.

Compare John Sage Foundation with peer funders

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How do I get to John Sage Foundation?

Find your warmest path to John Sage 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.

About John Sage Foundation

How much does John Sage Foundation give?: John Sage Foundation reported 27 grants totaling $161,500 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 12 and 20 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.
What does John Sage Foundation fund?: By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Environment (73%), Animals (8%), Science & Tech (4%).
Who are John Sage Foundation's largest grantees?: By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Midcoast Conservancy ($49k), Friends of Baxter State Park ($32k), Frenchman Bay Conservancy ($26k).
Does John Sage Foundation fund new organizations?: In FY2024, 50% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does John Sage Foundation accept unsolicited applications?: Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.
Which funders back the same organizations as John Sage Foundation?: Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Davis Conservation Foundation, Maine Community Foundation Inc, Onion Foundation.
Where is John Sage Foundation based?: John Sage Foundation is based in ME.