How much does The Northwest Fund for the Environment give?

The Northwest Fund for the Environment reported 40 grants totaling $373,400 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 25 and 34 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Northwest Fund for the Environment fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Environment (86%), Animals (3%), Community Improvement (3%).

Who are The Northwest Fund for the Environment's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Columbia Riverkeeper ($128k), Futurewise ($126k), Re Sources ($124k).

Does The Northwest Fund for the Environment fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Northwest Fund for the Environment accept unsolicited applications?

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

Which funders back the same organizations as The Northwest Fund for the Environment?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Patagoniaorg, Seattle Foundation, The Rose Foundation for Communities the Environment.

Where is The Northwest Fund for the Environment based?

The Northwest Fund for the Environment is based in WA.

The Northwest Fund for the Environment

The Northwest Fund for the Environment at a glance

· Private foundation

The Northwest Fund for the Environment

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$373k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$20k

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 2024.

Environment$2.0MAnimals$79kCommunity Improvement$64kCrime & Legal$42kHousing & Shelter$40kPublic Benefit$20kCivil Rights$20kArts & Culture$19kOther$0

02FY2025 · 40 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k11 grants · $43k
$10k–50k29 grants · $330k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$5.3M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
RE SOURCES	$20,000
CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL LAW & POLICY	$20,000
COLUMBIA RIVERKEEPER	$20,000
FUTUREWISE	$20,000
TOXIC-FREE FUTURE	$10,000
TROUT UNLIMITED INC	$10,000
NORTHWEST CENTER FOR ALTERNATIVES TO PESTICIDES	$10,000
TWIN HARBORS WATERKEEPER	$10,000
SURFRIDER FOUNDATION	$10,000
PUGET SOUND SAGE	$10,000
AMERICAN WHITEWATER	$10,000
SNAKE RIVER WATERKEEPER INC	$10,000
COMMUNITIES FOR A HEALTHY BAY	$10,000
WESTERN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER	$10,000
CASCADE FOREST CONSERVANCY	$10,000

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 (FY17–19, $13k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% 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.

Which US states its grants reach

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 16% of The Northwest Fund for the Environment’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 84% of the giving stays in WA; by stated purpose, 76%.

The Northwest Fund for the Environmentlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 3.7% 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.

93%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$2.5M · 47 repeat orgs$198k to everyone else

47 repeat relationships: 34 still active in FY2025, 13 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

$2.5M

$183k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+43%

+44%

Still filing today

87%

71%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EnvironmentAnimalsArts & CultureCommunity ImprovementEducationPhilanthropyOther

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

CR
Columbia Riverkeeper
7× · 2017–2025 · $128k · revenue +92%
RS
RE SOURCES
9× · 2017–2025 · $124k · revenue +11%
PS
PUGET SOUNDKEEPER ALLIANCE
6× · 2017–2025 · $99k · revenue +8%

Funded once

WP
Washington Progress Fundgraduated
one grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue +32%
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2019 · $15k
ON
ORCA NETWORK
one grant, 2022 · $13k · revenue +22%

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.

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…

—

Western Resource Advocates

Western Resource Advocates (WRA) is a regional nonprofit advocacy organization fighting climate change and its impacts to sustain the environment, economy, and people of the West. As the region's go-to experts for more than three decades,…

Crime & Legal

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 &…

—

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

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

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

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.

—

WaterWatch of Oregon

WaterWatch is a water conservation organization dedicated to protecting and restoring streamflows in Oregon rivers for fish, wildlife and the people who depend on healthy rivers.

—

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

Center for Sustainable Economy

Promoting economic sustainability

Environment

Washington Coast Sustainable Salmon Foundation

The foundation board is comprised of members with diverse backgrounds and expertise who devote their shared commitment and passion to collectively support protection and restoration of the washington coast region salmon by providing…

Animals

Whatcom Land Trust

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.

Environment

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Washington Conservation Action Education Fund; the most unlike its peers is Kettle Range Conservation Group. 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

65 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. 65 of the 78 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)

64/65

Grantees still filing

46/65

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Environment$1,752,200Other$583,500Animals$206,000Community Improvement$73,500Social Science$50,000Arts & Culture$29,000Youth Development$16,000

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.

PatagoniaorgCA56× affinity29 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Patagoniaorg · Seattle Foundation · The Rose Foundation for Communities the Environment · The Bullitt Foundation · The Satterberg Foundation Inc · The Burning Foundation · Charlotte y Martin Foundation-Ima · The Russell Family Foundation · The Hugh and Jane Ferguson Foundation · Harder Foundation · Inatai Foundation · Grousemont 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 Northwest Fund for the Environment funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Northwest Fund for the Environment. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

5get no government money at all

22report 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

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 Northwest Fund for the Environment?

Find your warmest path to The Northwest Fund for the Environment 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 Northwest Fund for the Environment’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