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Foundation DossiersMostly funded, not a grantmaker — see who funds it →
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· Public charity

Sierra Club Foundation

See schedule o.the SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION promotes efforts to educate and empower people to protect and improve the natural and human environment.goals: - solve the climate crisis primarily through a successful transition to a resource-efficient clean energy economy that better serves people and nature;- secure protections for public…

$44M
Granted FY2025still arriving
12
Grants FY2025still arriving
8
States reached
$44M
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

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

Environment$702MEducation$1.0MPhilanthropy$678kCommunity Improvement$516kCivil Rights$275kArts & Culture$208kHousing & Shelter$205kInternational$159kOther$0
02FY2025 · 12 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k1 grant · $6k
  • $10k–50k5 grants · $120k
  • $50k–250k5 grants · $448k
  • $250k+1 grant · $44M
$50,000
Median grant
8
States reached
$192M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
SIERRA CLUB$43,795,738
JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO$247,904
ATMOS LTD$50,000
WEST VIRGINIA CITIZEN ACTION EDUCATION FUND$50,000
FOR A BETTER BAYOU$50,000
CENTER FOR PROGRESSIVE REFORM$50,000
CONFLUENCE PHILANTHROPY$30,000
THE ASPEN INSTITUTE$25,000
BLUE SKY INSTITUTE$25,000
TRIBAL LINK FOUNDATION$20,000
THE CRANE INSTITUTE OF SUSTAINABILITY$20,000
AUDUBON SOCIETY OF NEW YORK STATE$6,250
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY23–25, $50k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, 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.

area typical 10%JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTERS OF CHICAGO: $16k → 14%JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTERS OF CHICAGO: $13k → 14%TRIBAL LINK FOUNDATION: $20k → 17%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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

AK
VT
WA
MN
IL
WI
MI
NY
MA
OR
NV
SD
PA
NJ
CA
UT
CO
MO
WV
VA
MD
NM
TN
NC
SC
DC
LA
MS
GA
FL

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

99%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$700M · 26 repeat orgs$5.1M to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +99% since the first grant, against +13% for the ones you funded once.

26 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 22 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

26
68

Total granted

$700M
$4.8M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+99%
+13%

Still filing today

100%
93%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $270k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
EnvironmentCommunity ImprovementPublic BenefitEducationInternationalHuman ServicesOther

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

  • SA
    SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEURS (SEE) INC
    4× · 2017–2023 · $760k · revenue +490%
  • The Partnership Project Inc
    3× · 2020–2023 · $650k · revenue +15%
  • COMMUNITY INITIATIVES
    3× · 2020–2024 · $620k · revenue +158%

Funded once

  • PM
    POPULATION MEDIA CENTER INC
    one grant, 2022 · $939k · revenue 0%
  • MOVEMENT STRATEGY CENTER
    one grant, 2018 · $320k · revenue -2%
  • SG
    SEVENTH GENERATION FUND FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES INCgraduated
    one grant, 2018 · $250k · revenue +54%

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
The Climate Center

The Climate Center is a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.

Education
2
CarbonPlan

Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.

Environment
3
Climate Foundation

To research and develop healthy climate solutions comprising global food security, ecosystem regeneration and carbon balance in seas and soils.

Science & Tech
4
Partnership for Policy Integrity

Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI) uses data-driven advocacy and litigation to fight for forests, communities and the climate.

Environment
5
Nature for Justice

To empower frontline communities to lead nature-based solutions that advance climate justice, ecosystem restoration, and resilient livelihoods through connecting locally-led initiatives to funding, markets, and technical support.

Environment
6
California Environmental Justice Alliance

Our mission is to fight against fossil fuel executives and industries that have turned our communities into dumping grounds for toxic waste, poisoning our air, water, lan, and bodies. We organize to oppose giant oil refineries, dirty…

Environment
7
The Union of Concerned Scientists Inc

The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.

International
8
Cascade Climate Inc

To accelerate progress in interventions that harness Earths natural systems to stabilize the climate.

Environment
9
E3G Third Generation Environmentalism

E3g is a leading international not-for-profit think tank specialising in climate diplomacy harnessing expertise in the politics and economics of climate change.

Environment
10
Environmental Investigation Agency

To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.

International
11
Climate Catalyst Inc

Climate catalyst sparks collective action to tackle the biggest climate challenges we face today: cutting emissions in heavy industries.

Environment
12
Climate Rights International

CRI is an international climate and human rights monitoring and advocacy organization dedicated to preventing climate change and human rights abuses.

Environment

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (See) Inc and the most unlike its peers is Born Free Foundation. 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.

← shrinkinggrowing →↓ leaning in → pulling backsteadyAffordable Housing Developm…Immigrant Worker SupportPolicy Research and AdvocacyCommunity FoundationsMilitary Veterans SupportHealth Access Advocacy and …Jewish Community Organizati…Christian Missionary Organi…Community College Foundatio…Faith-Based Liberal Arts Co…Environmental Conservation …
the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side
Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

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 24 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number24%3%<5yr15%10%5–10yr20%25%10–20yr17%34%20–35yr11%19%35–55yr13%10%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value24%0%<5yr15%0%5–10yr20%0%10–20yr17%0%20–35yr11%0%35–55yr13%99%55yr+

The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/105
the rest of the field
14%
26,003/186,873

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.

04the grantee network

102 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. 102 of the 105 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.

5
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
32
Early backer (in before they grew)
100/102
Grantees still filing
61/102
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

SIERRA CLUB — $694,981,620 · OtherSIERRA CLUB+33 more — $2,043,295 · OtherSOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEURS (SEE) INC — $760,000 · EnvironmentThe Partnership Project Inc — $650,000 · EnvironmentMICHIGAN ENVIROMENTAL COUNCIL — $250,000 · EnvironmentGreenLatinos — $200,000 · EnvironmentSolutions Project Inc — $200,000 · EnvironmentEnvironmental Health Coalition — $195,000 · EnvironmentMINNESOTA CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY — $141,000 · Environment+38 more — $1,677,178 · EnvironmentCOMMUNITY INITIATIVES — $620,000 · PhilanthropyTIDES FOUNDATION — $250,000 · PhilanthropyROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS INC — $250,000 · PhilanthropyJEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO — $247,904 · PhilanthropyCONFLUENCE PHILANTHROPY INC — $150,000 · Philanthropy+1 more — $50,000 · PhilanthropyPOPULATION MEDIA CENTER INC — $939,274 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY FOUNDATION — $254,000 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA — $88,600 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION — $60,000 · EducationWEST VIRGINIA CITIZEN ACTION EDUCATION FUND — $50,000 · Education+2 more — $60,000 · EducationSEVENTH GENERATION FUND FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES INC — $250,000 · Human ServicesLatino Community Fund of Washington State — $205,000 · Human ServicesJewish Community Centers of Chicago — $29,573 · Human ServicesTRIBAL LINK FOUNDATION INC — $20,000 · Human ServicesMOVEMENT STRATEGY CENTER — $320,000 · Community ImprovementVIRGINIA ORGANIZING INC — $30,000 · Community ImprovementALLIANCE FOR A JUST SOCIETY — $30,000 · Community ImprovementCoalicion Pro Corredor Ecologico Del Noreste Inc — $25,000 · Community ImprovementNATIVE MOVEMENT — $15,000 · Community Improvement+1 more — $10,500 · Community ImprovementRIGHT TO THE CITY ALLIANCE — $175,000 · Civil RightsFLORIDA RISING TOGETHER INC — $144,200 · Civil RightsPROGRESSIVE LEADERSHIP ALLIANCE OF NEVADA — $70,000 · Civil Rights
Other$697,024,915Environment$4,073,178Philanthropy$1,567,904Education$1,451,874Human Services$504,573Community Improvement$430,500Civil Rights$389,200

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetSIERRA CLUB — $694,981,620 over 9y, 56% of budgetPOPULATION MEDIA CENTER INC — $939,274 over 1y, 9.9% of budgetSOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEURS (SEE) INC — $760,000 over 4y, 1.6% of budgetThe Partnership Project Inc — $650,000 over 3y, 0.9% of budgetCOMMUNITY INITIATIVES — $620,000 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetRocky Mountain Institute — $388,000 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetMOVEMENT STRATEGY CENTER — $320,000 over 1y, 1.4% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY FOUNDATION — $254,000 over 7y, 0.0% of budgetSEVENTH GENERATION FUND FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES INC — $250,000 over 1y, 8.6% of budgetTIDES FOUNDATION — $250,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetMICHIGAN ENVIROMENTAL COUNCIL — $250,000 over 1y, 4.6% of budgetROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS INC — $250,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetJEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO — $247,904 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetLatino Community Fund of Washington State — $205,000 over 2y, 1.6% of budgetGreenLatinos — $200,000 over 2y, 3.5% of budgetSolutions Project Inc — $200,000 over 1y, 1.0% of budgetEnvironmental Health Coalition — $195,000 over 3y, 1.7% of budgetGRASSROOTS INTERNATIONAL INC — $175,000 over 2y, 1.9% of budgetRIGHT TO THE CITY ALLIANCE — $175,000 over 1y, 1.6% of budgetVerde Inc — $150,000 over 1y, 3.8% of budgetCONFLUENCE PHILANTHROPY INC — $150,000 over 8y, 1.8% of budgetFLORIDA RISING TOGETHER INC — $144,200 over 3y, 2.0% of budgetMINNESOTA CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY — $141,000 over 2y, 3.5% of budgetEarth Island Institute Inc — $114,812 over 2y, 0.9% of budgetGreen 20 — $110,000 over 2y, 5.1% of budgetNONPROFIT LEGAL SERVICES OF UTAH — $100,000 over 1y, 8.4% of budgetCITIZEN ACTION OF WISCONSIN EDUCATION FUND INC — $100,000 over 1y, 6.3% of budgetBlueGreen Alliance Foundation — $100,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetVERMONT ENERGY INVESTMENT CORPORATION — $100,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetSUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION — $100,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetCENTRO DE PERIODISMO INVESTIGATIVO INC — $95,000 over 1y, 6.8% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA — $88,600 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetWest Harlem Environmental Action Inc — $75,000 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetOf Salt and Sand — $75,000 over 1y, 76% of budgetWashington Interfaith Network — $75,000 over 2y, 15% of budgetPOWER SHIFT NETWORK — $75,000 over 1y, 3.4% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION — $60,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetEarthworks — $60,000 over 1y, 1.2% of budgetFRACK ACTION FUND INC — $60,000 over 1y, 25% of budgetAS YOU SOW — $50,000 over 1y, 1.0% of budgetNW ENERGY COALITION — $50,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetWinyah Rivers Foundation Inc — $50,000 over 1y, 15% of budgetPARTNERSHIP FOR SOUTHERN EQUITY — $50,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetSIERRA FOOTHILLS AUDUBON SOCIETY — $50,000 over 1y, 64% of budgetSUNRISE MOVEMENT EDUCATION FUND — $50,000 over 1y, 8.5% of budgetCONSERVATION VOTERS OF SC EDUC FUND — $50,000 over 1y, 4.6% of budgetBEYOND NUCLEAR — $50,000 over 1y, 10% of budgetRIO GRANDE RETURN — $50,000 over 3y, 1.7% of budget
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.

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.

PatagoniaorgSierra ClubUnited States Energy …Amalgamated Charitabl…Windward FundNatural Resources Def…The Schmidt Family Fo…The Energy FoundationTides CenterEnvironmental Defense…Rockefeller Family Fu…Tides Foundation
PatagoniaorgCA43.8× affinity23 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Patagoniaorg · Sierra Club · United States Energy Foundation · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · Windward Fund · Natural Resources Defense Council Inc · The Schmidt Family Foundation · The Energy Foundation · Tides Center · Environmental Defense Fund Incorporated · Rockefeller Family Fund Inc · Tides Foundation

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 Sierra Club 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 80%6%23%51%90%your share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →median 15%
  • Vermont Energy Investment Corporation — 15% of income from government
  • Verde Inc — 3% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
8get no government money at all
15report 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

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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 105 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

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

Source object · view filing

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