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Sustainable Northwest at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Sustainable Northwest

SUSTAINABLE NORTHWEST forges community-led solutions that work for nature, people, and jobs.

$1.3M
Granted FY2025still arriving
12
Grants FY2025still arriving
4
States reached
$314k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
01What it funds
01FY2025 · 12 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • $10k–50k5 grants · $174k
  • $50k–250k6 grants · $848k
  • $250k+1 grant · $314k
$88,862
Median grant
4
States reached
$8.1M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
VIBRANT PLANET PUBLIC BENEFIT CORPORATION$313,805
ECOTRUST$230,942
APPLEGATE PARTNERSHIP$230,389
JACKSON SOIL AND WATER$131,848
NORTHWEST NATURAL RESOURCES$110,295
VIBRANT PLANET DATA COMMONS$88,862
BONNEVILLE ENVIRONMENTAL FOUNDATION$55,190
WASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION$43,746
CLACKAMAS SOIL AND WATER$36,645
TROUT MOUNTAIN FORESTRY$34,398
UPPER WILLAMETTE SOIL AND WATER$34,380
MARION SOIL AND WATER$25,199
02The need
02

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 (FY24–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 93% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 8%VIBRANT PLANET PUBLIC BENEFIT CORPORATION: $359k → 11%CLACKAMAS SOIL AND WATER: $45k → 8%TROUT MOUNTAIN FORESTRY: $134k → 12%APPLEGATE PARTNERSHIP: $230k → 13%MARION SOIL AND WATER: $25k → 14%UPPER WILLAMETTE SOIL AND WATER: $34k → 15%VIBRANT PLANET DATA COMMONS: $175k → 7%NORTHWEST NATURAL RESOURCES: $591k → 9%MOUNT ADAMS RESOURCE: $12k → 12%VIBRANT PLANET PUBLIC BENEFIT CORPORATION: $314k → 11%CLACKAMAS SOIL AND WATER: $37k → 8%TROUT MOUNTAIN FORESTRY: $34k → 12%JACKSON SOIL AND WATER: $132k → 13%VIBRANT PLANET DATA COMMONS: $89k → 7%WASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION: $244k → 9%ECOTRUST: $792k → 12%JACKSON SOIL AND WATER: $69k → 13%NORTHWEST NATURAL RESOURCES: $110k → 9%ECOTRUST: $231k → 12%JACKSON SOIL AND WATER: $48k → 13%WASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION: $44k → 9%BONNEVILLE ENVIRONMENTAL FOUNDATION: $113k → 12%BONNEVILLE ENVIRONMENTAL FOUNDATION: $55k → 12%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.
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.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

86%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$3.4M · 8 repeat orgs$550k to everyone else

8 repeat relationships: 8 still active in FY2025, 0 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

8
2

Total granted

$3.4M
$128k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+5%
+9%

Still filing today

63%
50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 68% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $422k went to new ones.

50%100%’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’24’25
EnvironmentHealthOther
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.

Backed again, and grew

  • NN
    NORTHWEST NATURAL RESOURCE GROUP
    2× · 2024–2025 · $701k · revenue +30% · 69% of their budget
  • VD
    VP DATA COMMONS
    2× · 2024–2025 · $264k · revenue +167%
  • BE
    BONNEVILLE ENVIRONMENTAL FOUNDATION
    2× · 2024–2025 · $169k · revenue +5%

Funded once

  • JS
    JACKSON SOIL AND WATER
    one grant, 2024 · $117k
  • MA
    MT ADAMS RESOURCE STEWARDS
    one grant, 2024 · $12k · revenue +9%
How this is measured

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

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
Idaho Forest Restoration Partnership
Environment
2
Ecosystem Sciences Foundation Inc

River and watershed restoration

Environment
3
Center for Sustainable Economy

Promoting economic sustainability

Environment
4
Cascadia Wildlands

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…

Environment
5
Sustainable Northwest

Sustainable northwest forges community-led solutions that work for nature, people, and jobs.

Community Improvement
6
California Wildlife Foundation

The foundation works with diverse groups representing many interests to acquire and restore critical wildlife habitat and protecting species

Animals
7
Oregon Natural Resources Council Fund

Oregon Wild works to protect and restore Oregon's wildlands, wildlife and waters as an enduring legacy for future generations.

Environment
8
Natural State Ltd

Through large-scale restoration and rewilding, natural state secures biodiversity, sequesters and stores carbon, and helps achieve the sustainable development goals. natural state is helping restore and rewild a minimum of 1,000,000 acres.

Environment
9
Washington Forest Law Center

Dedicated to protecting the world's natural environment on behalf of the public by serving as a public interest law firm. refer to schedule o, part iii, line 4a, for list of litigated cases or advocacy work.

—
10
Western Rivers Conservancy

Western rivers conservancy's mission is to protect outstanding river ecosystems in the western united states. continued on schedule o.we acquire land to conserve critical habitat, provide public access for compatible use and enjoyment, and…

Environment
11
Washington Water Trust

Wwt's mission is to protect and restore water in rivers and streams across washington state. washington water trust restores and protects water in rivers and streams and promotes sustainable freshwater management in washington, and, more…

Environment
12
American Forests

Protection and expansion of threatened urban and wildland forest ecosystems. See Part III

Environment
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mt Adams Resource Stewards; the most unlike its peers is Jackson County Sart. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
03the grantee network

8 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. 8 of the 14 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

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

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
8/8
Grantees still filing
4/8
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

ECOTRUST: $1,022,668 · OtherECOTRUSTVIBRANT PLANET PBC: $672,967 · OtherVIBRANT PLANET PBCTROUT MOUNTAIN FORESTRY: $168,757 · OtherTROUT MOUNTAIN FORESTRYJACKSON SOIL AND WATER: $116,698 · OtherJACKSON SOIL AND WATERCLACKAMAS SOIL AND WATER: $81,557 · Other+2 more: $59,579 · OtherNORTHWEST NATURAL RESOURCE GROUP: $701,329 · EnvironmentNORTHWEST NATURAL RESOURCE GROUPWASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION EDUCATION FUND: $287,864 · EnvironmentWASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION EDUCATION FUNDVP DATA COMMONS: $264,237 · EnvironmentVP DATA COMMONSAPPLEGATE PARTNERSHIP INC: $230,389 · EnvironmentAPPLEGATE PARTNERSHIP INCBONNEVILLE ENVIRONMENTAL FOUNDATION: $168,675 · EnvironmentBONNEVILLE ENVIRONMENTAL FOUNDATION+1 more: $11,761 · EnvironmentJACKSON COUNTY SART: $131,848 · Health
Other$2,122,226Environment$1,664,255Health$131,848

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

25%50%75%100%$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetECOTRUST: $1,022,668 over 2y, 8.0% of budgetNORTHWEST NATURAL RESOURCE GROUP: $701,329 over 2y, 69% of budgetWASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION EDUCATION FUND: $287,864 over 2y, 4.8% of budgetVP DATA COMMONS: $264,237 over 2y, 24% of budgetAPPLEGATE PARTNERSHIP INC: $230,389 over 1y, 19% of budgetBONNEVILLE ENVIRONMENTAL FOUNDATION: $168,675 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetMT ADAMS RESOURCE STEWARDS: $11,761 over 1y, 0.3% 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.

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.

The Oregon Community …Fidelity Investments …
The Oregon Community FoundationOR12.7× affinity4 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Oregon Community Foundation · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

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.

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%5%19%42%75%funder's share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →median 100%
  • Bonneville Environmental Foundation: 100% of income from government
  • Ecotrust: 14% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
3report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
1rely on government for over half their income
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 14 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

Play a game based on Sustainable Northwest’s filings →

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