How much does The Planetary Trust give?

The Planetary Trust reported 20 grants totaling $469,484 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 17 and 26 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does The Planetary Trust fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Environment (47%), Education (31%), Science & Tech (8%).

Who are The Planetary Trust's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Southern Methodist University ($717k), Rocky Mountain Institute ($709k), The Biomimicry Institute ($255k).

Does The Planetary Trust fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 25% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Planetary Trust accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Planetary Trust?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Dea Family Foundation, Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley, The Dallas Foundation.

Where is The Planetary Trust based?

The Planetary Trust is based in TX.

The Planetary Trust

The Planetary Trust at a glance

· Private foundation

The Planetary Trust

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.

$469k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$130k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Environment$1.5MEducation$980kScience & Tech$255kArts & Culture$209kInternational$152kCommunity Improvement$23kPhilanthropy$15kHealth$6kOther$0

02FY2024 · 20 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k6 grants · $10k
$10k–50k10 grants · $126k
$50k–250k4 grants · $333k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.0M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE	$130,000
SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY	$102,200
Individual grant recipient	$51,000
BIOMIMICRY INSTITUTE	$50,000
GLOBE AWARE	$21,000
WESTERN COLORADO UNIVERSITY	$20,000
CENTER FOR THE ARTS CRESTED BUTTE	$15,000
TEXAS TREES FOUNDATION	$10,010
DALLAS ARBORETUM	$10,000
Downwinders at Risk	$10,000
TEXAS SOLOR ENERGY SOCIETY	$10,000
DALLAS OPERA	$10,000
HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION CENTER	$10,000
HOCKADAY SCHOOL	$10,000
PEROT MUSEUM	$5,000

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 (FY21–21, $21) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$3.0M · 34 repeat orgs$131k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +27% since the first grant, against +5% for those funded once.

34 repeat relationships: 16 still active in FY2024, 18 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$3.0M

$131k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+27%

+5%

Still filing today

62%

35%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $474 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EnvironmentArts & CultureEducationHealthScience & TechCommunity ImprovementOther

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

Southern Methodist University
8× · 2017–2024 · $717k · revenue +57%
Rocky Mountain Institute
8× · 2017–2024 · $709k · revenue +381%
TB
THE BIOMIMICRY INSTITUTE
4× · 2017–2024 · $255k · revenue +224%

Funded once

BI
BIOMIMICRY INSTITUTE
one grant, 2022 · $100k
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2017 · $7k
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2018 · $5k

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.

Terraset

Terraset uses philanthropic capital to purchase permanent, high-quality carbon removal. we pool donations from individuals, foundations, family offices, and donor advised funds, and make strategic purchases of high-quality carbon removal…

Environment

American Gas Association

American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…

—

The Union of Concerned Scientists Inc

The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.

International

The Climate Center

The Climate Center is a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.

Education

Cdp North America Inc

Cdp north america, inc. 's ("cdp-na") vision for the future is a thriving economy that works for people and planet in the long term. we focus investors and companies on taking urgent action to build a truly sustainable economy by measuring…

Environment

Grist Magazine Inc

Grist is an independent, non profit media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change.

Environment

Colorado Museum of Natural History

Be a catalyst! Ignite our community's passion for nature and science.

Arts & Culture

CarbonPlan

Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.

Environment

Native Plant Trust Inc

The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.

Environment

Glasstire

Glasstire is a website about visual art in Texas. Our mission is to expand the conversation about visual art in Texas.

Arts & Culture

Health and Environmental Sciences Institute

The health and environmental sciences institute (hesi) is a nonprofit institution whose mission is to engage scientists from academia, government, industry, nonprofit, and other research institutions to identify and resolve global health…

Science & Tech

Western Electricity Coordinating Council

To effectively and efficiently mitigate risks to the reliability and security of the western interconnection's bulk power system.

Public Benefit

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Biomimicry Institute; the most unlike its peers is Planned Parenthood. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

34 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. 34 of the 66 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)

34/34

Grantees still filing

25/34

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,599,219Education$792,888Science & Tech$255,000Environment$174,295Community Improvement$151,840Arts & Culture$150,304Public Safety & Disaster$10,000

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.

Dea Family FoundationDE17.9× affinity6 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Dea Family Foundation · Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley · The Dallas Foundation · Greater Houston Community Foundation · Colorado Gives Foundation · Dallas Jewish Community Foundation · Communities Foundation of Texas Inc · Patagoniaorg · Texas Instruments Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program

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

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

6report 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.

Play a game based on Planetary’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