· Public charity
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Inc
The mission of the rocky mountain elk foundation (rmef) is to ensure the future of elk, other wildlife, their habitat and our hunting heritage.
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.
The 112 grants below total $8,411,536 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $9,219,469 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $807,933 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 · FY2024
- Under $10k35 grants · $248k
- $10k–50k48 grants · $983k
- $50k–250k22 grants · $2.6M
- $250k+7 grants · $4.6M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UTAH DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES | $1,693,707 |
| USDA FOREST SERVICE | $1,100,022 |
| PENNSYLVANIA GAME COMMISSION | $582,300 |
| TENNESSEE WILDLIFE RESOURCES AGENCY | $358,655 |
| MONTANA DEPARTMENT OF FISH WILDLIFE & PARKS | $316,047 |
| COLORADO PARKS AND WILDLIFE | $281,719 |
| SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN HIGHLANDS CONSERVANCY | $250,000 |
| PHEASANTS FOREVER | $232,893 |
| KENTUCKY DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE RESOURCES | $224,626 |
| IDAHO DEPARTMENT OF FISH & GAME | $222,500 |
| WYOMING GAME & FISH DEPARTMENT | $175,857 |
| SOUTH DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF GAME FISH AND PARKS | $145,935 |
| WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE | $134,740 |
| WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES | $125,030 |
| ILLINOIS CONSERVATION FOUNDATION | $125,000 |
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 (FY19–24, $145k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 8% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
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 +38% since the first grant, against +23% for the ones you funded once.
91 repeat relationships — 55 still active in FY2024, 36 since wound down; 53 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, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.4M 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
- ICIllinois Conservation Foundation6× · 2019–2024 · $775k · revenue +30%
- MMMax McGraw Wildlife Foundation5× · 2019–2024 · $613k · revenue +91%
- WMWILDLIFE MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE INC6× · 2019–2024 · $505k · revenue +37%
Funded once
- CPColoradans Protecting Wildlifeone grant, 2020 · $283k · 36% of their budget
- ACASOTIN COUNTY CONSERVATION DISTRICTone grant, 2022 · $139k
- BRBABBITT RANCHES LLCone grant, 2020 · $110k
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.
Wyoming wildlife federation delivers leadership in conservation for the state's wildlife, hunters, anglers, and conservationists through policy, education, advocacy, and habitat.
The montana wildlife federation is a statewide conservation organization dedicated to protecting wildlife, wildlife habitat, and public access for outdoor recreation.
Arizona Wildlife Federation's purpose is to promote and encourage the conservation, propagation, development and management of fish, game and other wildlife; to promote and encourage the wise use, conservation and restoration of waters,…
To promote science-based wildlife management that fosters ecosystem health and dynamic equilibrium between species throughout the state of wyoming.
Promote interest, education, and conservation regarding hunting and fishing and aid in the protection of wildlife. promote sportsman like hunting methods and improve hunter/landowner relations.
1. To preserve land and wildlife for the use and education of future generations.2. To assist in wildlife management programs that protect and preserve land and wildlife.3. To provide education regardign the importance of hunting and its…
The Idaho Wildlife Federation (IWF) promotes the conservation of Idaho's wildlife heritage and legacy of sporting opportunities for the current and future generations.
The wyoming outdoor council's mission is to protect wyoming's environment and quality of life now and for future generations.
The mission of the Colorado Wildlife Heritage Foundation is to provide a legacy for Colorado through support of environmental stewardship conservation of wildlife and the protection of critical habitat.
A coalition of individuals, groups, and communities dedicated to outdoor recreation and the conservation and ethical use of minnesota's natural resources by all, for all, with all.
The mission of the organization is to educate the public and outdoorsmen about wildlife and wildlife conservation and to raise funds for conservation grants.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Integral Ecology Research Center. 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 25 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) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
114 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. 114 of the 273 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 Illinois Conservation Foundation ↗
- Who funds Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation ↗
- Who funds NEVADA WILDLIFE RECORD BOOK ↗
- Who funds WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE WILDLIFE RESOURCES FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds FIRST HUNT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PHEASANTS FOREVER INC ↗
- Who funds ONE MONTANA ↗
- Who funds SWVA SPORTSMEN INC ↗
- Who funds WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF FISH AND WILDLIFE AGENCIES ↗
- Who funds Coloradans Protecting Wildlife ↗
- Who funds Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA BIG GAME SUPER RAFFLE INC DBA CONSERVATION FIRST USA ↗
- Who funds RUFFED GROUSE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE UNITED STATES SPORTSMEN'S ALLIANCE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds University of Kentucky Research Foundation ↗
- Who funds RAISED AT FULL DRAW ↗
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: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation · Bass Pro Shops & Cabelas Outdoor Fund · NRA Foundation Inc · The Nature Conservancy · National Forest Foundation · Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation · Cabelas Outdoor Fund · Safari Club International Foundation · Investor Protection Trust · Resources Legacy Fund · Midway USA Foundation Inc · Whitetails Unlimited Inc
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 Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Inc 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.
- Northwest Youth Corps — 100% of income from government
- Wildlife Management Institute Inc — 100% of income from government
- Wallowa Resources Inc — 100% of income from government
- Oregon Wildlife Heritage Foundation — 16% of income from government
- Oregon State University Foundation — 0% 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.