· Public charity
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
To sustain, restore, and enhance the nation's fish, wildlife, plants, and habitats.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k61 grants · $461k
- $10k–50k381 grants · $11M
- $50k–250k471 grants · $58M
- $250k+252 grants · $364M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COASTAL PROTECTION AND RESTORATION AUTHORITY OF LOUISIANA | $29,047,733 |
| MOBILE COUNTY COMMISSION | $24,666,387 |
| TOWN OF DAUPHIN ISLAND | $24,638,207 |
| MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES CONSORTIUM DAUPHIN ISLAND SEA LAB | $23,511,268 |
| MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY | $17,983,468 |
| WALKER BASIN CONSERVANCY | $15,017,699 |
| DUCKS UNLIMITED INC | $12,497,710 |
| ALABAMA DEPT CONSERVATION & NATURAL RES | $12,000,000 |
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY | $9,946,898 |
| TEXAS GENERAL LAND OFFICE | $7,393,462 |
| TROUT UNLIMITED INC | $5,921,842 |
| WALKER RIVER IRRIGATION DISTRICT | $4,032,586 |
| PYRAMID LAKE PAIUTE TRIBE | $3,949,138 |
| APALACHEE REGIONAL PLANNING COUNCIL | $3,865,867 |
| DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR US FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE | $3,717,813 |
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 (FY21–21, $210k) land where the poverty rate runs at 21%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 9% of National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
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 foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +62% since the first grant, against +17% for the ones you funded once.
1589 repeat relationships — 863 still active in FY2024, 726 since wound down; 173 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $38M 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
- WBWALKER BASIN CONSERVANCY8× · 2017–2024 · $67M · revenue +387% · 93% of their budget
THE CONSERVATION FUND A NONPROFIT CORPORATION8× · 2017–2024 · $42M · revenue +40%- MEMARINE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES CONSORTIUM8× · 2017–2024 · $41M · revenue +109% · 60% of their budget
Funded once
- FFFUND FOR THE CITY OF NEW YORK INCone grant, 2021 · $4.0M · revenue -39%
- FNFIDELITY NATIONAL TITLE COMPANYone grant, 2020 · $3.5M
- TOTOWN OF NAVASSAone grant, 2022 · $3.4M
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.
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…
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…
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…
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.
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
The foundation works with diverse groups representing many interests to acquire and restore critical wildlife habitat and protecting species
The Coast Fork Willamette Watershed Council is a local nonprofit organization that strives to enhance and restore habitat for fish and wildlife our community and for future generations. Our Board of Directors consists of seven members with…
The mission of the center for natural lands management is (a) to conserve native species, their habitat and functioning ecosystems in perpetuity, (b) to own and/or manage lands in an ecologically beneficial manner consistent with local,…
To protect and sustain the unique lands, waters, and biodiversity of west marin.
Oregon Wild works to protect and restore Oregon's wildlands, wildlife and waters as an enduring legacy for future generations.
The resource renewal institute facilitates the creation, development and implementation of practical strategies to solve the entire complex environmental problem by addressing it comprehensively.
The wildlands trust works throughout southeastern massachusetts to conserve and permanently protect native habitats, farmland, and lands of high ecologic and scenic value that serve to keep our communities healthy and our residents…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wildlands Conservancy Inc and the most unlike its peers is Ndponics. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 30 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.5% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
1119 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
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 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 1119 of the 2,000 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds WALKER BASIN CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds THE CONSERVATION FUND A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES CONSORTIUM ↗
- Who funds TROUT UNLIMITED INC ↗
- Who funds Ducks Unlimited Inc ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds Galveston Bay Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR THE CHESAPEAKE BAY INC ↗
- Who funds PHEASANTS FOREVER INC ↗
- Who funds American Bird Conservancy ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION ↗
- Who funds THE LONGLEAF ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN LITTORAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds STROUD WATER RESEARCH CENTER ↗
- Who funds GREAT BASIN LAND AND WATER ↗
- Who funds Sea Turtle Conservancy ↗
- Who funds COASTAL BEND BAYS & ESTUARIES PROGRAM INC ↗
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: The Nature Conservancy · National Forest Foundation · Bonneville Environmental Foundation · Land Trust Alliance Inc · American Forests · United States Endowment for Forestry · Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation · Patagoniaorg · American Rivers Inc · Restore America's Estuaries · Chesapeake Bay Trust · Resources Legacy Fund
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 National Fish and Wildlife 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Chesapeake Bay Trust — 100% of income from government
- Mill River Collaborative Inc — 100% of income from government
- Wildlife Management Institute Inc — 100% of income from government
- Deschutes River Conservancy — 100% of income from government
- National Marine Sanctuary Foundation — 88% of income from government
- Partnership for the Delaware Estuary Inc — 69% of income from government
- George Miksch Sutton Avian Research Center Inc — 68% of income from government
- Connecticut River Watershed Council Inc — 40% of income from government
- Buzzards Bay Coalition — 37% of income from government
- Save the Sound — 37% of income from government
- Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership — 29% of income from government
- Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay Inc — 28% of income from government
- Chesapeake Conservancy Inc — 27% of income from government
- The Freshwater Trust — 17% of income from government
- Shorerivers Inc — 13% of income from government
- Manomet Inc — 12% of income from government
- Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen's Alliance Inc — 5% of income from government
- Alachua Conservation Trust Inc — 5% of income from government
- University of Miami — 5% of income from government
- Mote Marine Laboratory Inc — 4% of income from government
- Groundwork Jacksonville Inc — 3% of income from government
- Chesapeake Bay Foundation Inc — 2% of income from government
- Sea Turtle Conservancy — 1% of income from government
- New Jersey Audubon Society — 1% of income from government
- American Littoral Society — 1% 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.