· Private foundation
The Holocene Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $6k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $175k
- $50k–250k12 grants · $1.4M
- $250k+8 grants · $59M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHABOT FAMILY DAF - VANGUARD | $56,403,675 |
| CONSERVATION LANDS FOUNDATION | $400,000 |
| EARTHJUSTICE | $400,000 |
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY | $350,000 |
| CLIMATE SOLUTIONS | $300,000 |
| THE CONSERVATION ALLIANCE | $300,000 |
| THE MOUNTAINEERS | $250,000 |
| CONSERVATION NORTHWEST | $250,000 |
| DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE | $200,000 |
| TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND | $200,000 |
| OUTDOOR ALLIANCE | $150,000 |
| ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND | $150,000 |
| NRDC | $150,000 |
| FRIENDS OF WATERFRONT SEATTLE | $100,000 |
| SALMON-SAFE INC | $100,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 8% of your 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.
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 +33% since the first grant, against -18% for the ones you funded once.
27 repeat relationships — 26 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 1 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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $100k 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
- CLConservation Lands Foundation5× · 2020–2024 · $1.8M · revenue +62%
- CSCLIMATE SOLUTIONS6× · 2019–2024 · $1.4M · revenue +122%
THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND4× · 2021–2024 · $950k · revenue +109%
Funded once
- ODOREGON DESERT LAND TRUSTone grant, 2021 · $150k · revenue -86%
- CWCLEAN WASHINGTON WATERSone grant, 2019 · $150k
- LOLIVE OCEANone grant, 2022 · $70k · 46% of their budget
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.
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.
The mission of the Whatcom Land Trust is to preserve and protect wildlife habitat, scenic, agricultural and open space lands in Whatcom County for future generations by securing interests in land and promoting land stewardship.
The Center for Environmental Law & Policy is a statewide organization whose mission is to protect, preserve and restore Washington's waters through education, advocacy, policy reform, and public interest litigation.
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…
Support ecosystem-based wildlife management by increasing public awareness of wildlife issues, responding to information requests, advocating for science-based wildlife habitat management through proposal and comment submissions, and…
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…
Washington wild protects and restores wild lands and waters in washington state through advocacy, education and civic engagement.
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…
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.
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.
Promoting economic sustainability
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Washington Conservation Action Education Fund and the most unlike its peers is Live Ocean. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 27 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 32 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.
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds Conservation Lands Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE CONSERVATION ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE SOLUTIONS ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds Defenders of Wildlife ↗
- Who funds Outdoor Alliance ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds SALMON-SAFE INC ↗
- Who funds THE MOUNTAINEERS ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF SEATTLE WATERFRONT ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION NW ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds The Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust ↗
- Who funds ONE EARTH PHILANTHROPY ↗
- Who funds OREGON DESERT LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds CLEAN WASHINGTON WATERS ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON WATER TRUST ↗
- Who funds EarthGen Fka WA Green Schools ↗
- Who funds LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds SPARK NORTHWEST ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON TRAILS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Washington Wildlife & Recreation Coalition ↗
- Who funds ISLANDWOOD ↗
- Who funds RACHEL'S NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds LIVE OCEAN ↗
- Who funds SOCIAL VENTURE PARTNERS ↗
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: Seattle Foundation · The Bullitt Foundation · The Nature Conservancy · The Russell Family Foundation · Moccasin Lake Foundation · The Norcliffe Foundation · Patagoniaorg · Impactassetsinc · Treeline Foundation · The GreerSolien Fund · Kaleidoscope Foundation · The Satterberg Foundation 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 The Holocene 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.
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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Holocene Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Holocene 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.