How much does The Burning Foundation give?

The Burning Foundation reported 56 grants totaling $1,128,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 46 and 57 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Burning Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Environment (78%), Health (10%), Animals (5%).

Who are The Burning Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Futurewise ($219k), Puget Soundkeeper Alliance ($208k), Conservation Nw ($185k).

Does The Burning Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 8% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Burning Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Burning Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Patagoniaorg, The Oregon Community Foundation, The Lazar Foundation.

Where is The Burning Foundation based?

The Burning Foundation is based in WA.

The Burning Foundation

The Burning Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Burning Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$1.1M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$30k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Environment$5.9MHealth$728kAnimals$398kHuman Services$221kPublic Safety & Disaster$97kYouth Development$75kArts & Culture$33kHousing & Shelter$27kOther$0

02FY2025 · 56 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$20,000

Median grant

States reached

$13M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
FRIENDS OF THE SAN JUANS	$30,000
LEGACY FOREST DEFENSE COALITION	$30,000
SILVIX RESOURCES	$30,000
WATERWATCH OF OREGON	$30,000
PUGET SOUNDKEEPER ALLIANCE	$30,000
FUTUREWISE	$25,000
METHOW VALLEY CITIZENS COUNCIL	$25,000
WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION OF LAND TRUSTS	$25,000
NORTH CASCADES INSTITUTE	$25,000
OREGON DESERT LAND TRUST	$25,000
SKAGIT LAND TRUST	$25,000
KLAMATH-SISKIYOU WILDLANDS CENTER	$25,000
EARTHRISE LAW CENTER	$25,000
RE SOURCES	$25,000
SPOKANE RIVERKEEPER	$25,000

02The need

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:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $221k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 83% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 7% of The Burning Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 94% of the giving stays in WA; by stated purpose, 89%.

The Burning Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 5.2% directed abroad (not shown)

How this is measured

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 funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

95%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$7.2M · 78 repeat orgs$357k to everyone else

78 repeat relationships: 51 still active in FY2025, 27 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$7.2M

$312k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+34%

+82%

Still filing today

95%

64%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $45k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EnvironmentHealthAnimalsHuman ServicesEducationScience & TechOther

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

PS
PUGET SOUNDKEEPER ALLIANCE
9× · 2017–2025 · $208k · revenue +8%
CN
CONSERVATION NW
8× · 2017–2024 · $185k · revenue +79%
CF
CASCADE FOREST CONSERVANCY
9× · 2017–2025 · $183k · revenue +112%

Funded once

EARTHJUSTICEgraduated
one grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue +82%
RY
ROOTS YOUNG ADULT SHELTER
one grant, 2021 · $15k · revenue -20%
ONE COMMUNITY HEALTH
one grant, 2024 · $15k · revenue 0%

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.

Coast Fork Willamette Watershed Council

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…

Environment

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.

—

Northwest Environmental Advocates

Work through advocacy and education to use federal environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act to protect and restore water quality and habit in the Pacific Northwest and nationwide.

Environment

Southern Oregon Land Conservancy Inc

To conserve and enhance land in southern oregon to sustain our human and natural communities forever.

Environment

Palouse Land Trust Inc

Our mission is to work with landowners and communities to conserve the lands we love, now and forever, and to enrich connections to the natural world.

Environment

CalWild

The California Wilderness Coalition protects the natural landscapes that make California unique, providing clean air and water, a home to wildlife, and a place for recreation and spiritual renewal.

—

Wild Salmon Rivers

To conserve functioning salmon/steelhead eco-system at watershed levels, integrate angling activities with basic scientific research, collect raw data, monitor environmental functions, salmon/steelhead population dynamics, public…

Environment

Crooked River Watershed Council

To promote stewardship of the Crooked River Watershed and its resources and to ensure sustainable watershed health, functions, and uses for optimal conservation and benefit.

Environment

Northwest Environmental Defense Center

Nedc's mission is to work toward a future in which the pacific northwest leads the nation in developing, implementing & enforcing strong laws and regulations that protect the environment & human health, and where our governments &…

—

Idaho Forest Restoration Partnership

Environment

10000 Years Institute

10,000 Years Institute evaluates the ecological effects of human activities on natural environments, and promotes the maintenance and restoration of ecological integrity through the integration of reliable scientific information, sound…

Unclassified

Nw Energy Coalition

The NW Energy Coalition is an alliance of over 100 environmental, civic, and human service organizations, utilities, and businesses in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, plus many individual members. The NW Energy…

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is 1000 Friends of Oregon; the most unlike its peers is Ecosource Native Seed & Restoration. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

97 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 97 of the 109 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

95/97

Grantees still filing

71/97

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Environment$4,259,000Other$1,454,300Health$709,000Animals$632,000Human Services$221,000Education$167,000Public Safety & Disaster$97,000

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

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.

PatagoniaorgCA58.3× affinity33 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Patagoniaorg · The Oregon Community Foundation · The Lazar Foundation · Meyer Memorial Trust · The Rose Foundation for Communities the Environment · Seattle Foundation · Jubitz Family Foundation · The Bullitt Foundation · The Northwest Fund for the Environment · Charlotte y Martin Foundation-Ima · The Hugh and Jane Ferguson Foundation · The Roundhouse Foundation

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 The Burning Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Burning Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

14get no government money at all

29report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

3rely 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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Burning Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Burning Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.

Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.

Play a game based on Burning’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