· Public charity
The Biomimicry Institute
The purposes of this corporation shall be to naturalize biomimicry in the culture by promoting the transfer of ideas, designs, and strategies from biology to sustainable human systems design.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 2 grants below total $106,489 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $202,373 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $95,884 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
- $10k–50k1 grant · $39k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $67k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE OR FOUNDATION | $67,189 |
| YALE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THE ENVIRONMENT | $39,300 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY19–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of your 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.
Grants abroad, by region — $44k on the FY2024 return
Schedule F, as filed: 4 regions, all to individuals. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.
Stated purpose: GIFT FOR THE SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS PROGRAM TO SUPPORT TEXTILE BIODEGRADABILITY AND TEXTILE WASTE TOXICITY RESEARCH
Stated purpose: GRANTS FOR STUDENTS' ASSISTANCE ON THE GHANA PILOT OF DESIGN FOR TRANSFORMATION PROJECT RESEARCHING TEXTILE WASTE
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. Grants abroad on Schedule F are filed by region, purpose and amount with no recipient name, so they are shown by region and cannot be placed on the country map or matched to a grantee.
3 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. 3 of the 4 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
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.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization The Biomimicry Institute 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.
- Yale University — 12% 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.