· Private foundation
The Ricketts Conservation 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k4 grants · $160k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $56k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| University of Montana | $55,693 |
| Friends of the Bridger-Teton | $48,000 |
| University of Colorado - Denver | $45,469 |
| Wyoming Wetlands Society | $41,666 |
| Sublette County Conservation District | $25,000 |
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 (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 41% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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 +46% since the first grant, against +39% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 2 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, 66% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $73k 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
- WWWyoming Wetland Society5× · 2020–2024 · $1.0M · revenue -4% · 80% of their budget
Cornell University2× · 2020–2021 · $452k · revenue +46%- UOUniversity of Colorado - Denver3× · 2020–2024 · $100k
Funded once
- GYGREATER YELLOWSTONE COALITIONone grant, 2023 · $163k · revenue -47%
American Forestsgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $110k · revenue +47%- TUTROUT UNLIMITED INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $100k · revenue +81%
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.
We bring science, policy, and proven solutions directly to communities working to restore the integrity and natural connectivity of the landscapes in which they live. (see schedule o)
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…
Wildlands Network works to reconnect, restore and rewild North America so that life-in all its diversity-can thrive.
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.
Maintain the swan valley's unique natural resources and ensure that a vibrant human community can sustain itself through stewardship, education, economic viability, and conservation on public and private lands.
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
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…
The wood river land trust's mission is to protect and sustain the treasured landscapes and life-giving waters of the wood river valley and to inspire love for this special place for generations to come.
The mission of The Blackfoot Challenge is to coordinate efforts that will conserve and enhance the natural resources and rural way of life in the Blackfoot Watershed for present and future generations.
The resource renewal institute facilitates the creation, development and implementation of practical strategies to solve the entire complex environmental problem by addressing it comprehensively.
Icl's mission is to create a conservation community and pragmatic, enduring solutions that protect and restore the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the land and wildlife you love.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the most unlike its peers is Wyoming Wetland Society. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 15 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 Wyoming Wetland Society ↗
- Who funds Cornell University ↗
- Who funds GREATER YELLOWSTONE COALITION ↗
- Who funds American Forests ↗
- Who funds TROUT UNLIMITED INC ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN BIRD OBSERVATORY ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE BRIDGER-TETON ↗
- Who funds THE PEREGRINE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative ↗
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: Amazonsmile Foundation
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 Ricketts Conservation 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 Ricketts Conservation Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Ricketts Conservation 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.