How much does The RJ Salerno Foundation give?

The RJ Salerno Foundation reported 9 grants totaling $185,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 7 and 11 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The RJ Salerno Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Environment (49%), International (37%), Youth Development (8%).

Who are The RJ Salerno Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Sierra Club Foundation ($195k), Appalachian Mountain Club ($155k), Appalachian Trail Conservancy ($150k).

Does The RJ Salerno Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 11% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The RJ Salerno Foundation 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 RJ Salerno Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include American Online Giving Foundation Inc, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, Amazonsmile Foundation.

Where is The RJ Salerno Foundation based?

The RJ Salerno Foundation is based in DE.

The RJ Salerno Foundation

The RJ Salerno Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The RJ Salerno Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$185k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$50k

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$552kInternational$410kYouth Development$95kPublic Safety & Disaster$25kHuman Services$25kEmployment$5kHousing & Shelter$5kEducation$3k

02FY2025 · 9 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

$10k–50k8 grants · $135k
$50k–250k1 grant · $50k

$20,000

Median grant

States reached

$4.0M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
HEAL RAISING OUR WORLD FOUNDATION INC	$50,000
SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION	$30,000
OXFAM-AMERICA INC	$20,000
APPALACHIAN TRAIL CONSERVANCY	$20,000
APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN CLUB	$20,000
THE NATURE CONSERVANCY	$15,000
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC	$10,000
BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF NEWBURGH INC	$10,000
DIRECT RELIEF	$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 (FY17–25, $105k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, 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.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

94%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.1M · 12 repeat orgs$78k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +32% since the first grant, against -22% for those funded once.

12 repeat relationships: 7 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.1M

$28k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+32%

-22%

Still filing today

92%

60%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 71% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $50k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

InternationalEnvironmentHuman ServicesRecreation & SportsYouth DevelopmentEmploymentOther

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

Appalachian Mountain Club
9× · 2017–2025 · $155k · revenue +32%
AT
APPALACHIAN TRAIL CONSERVANCY
9× · 2017–2025 · $150k · revenue +126%
OXFAM-AMERICA INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $140k · revenue +8%

Funded once

MS
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC-DOCS WO BORDERS
one grant, 2019 · $10k
PW
P Whelan
one grant, 2020 · $5k
HF
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF GREATER NEWBURGH INC
one grant, 2019 · $5k · 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.

World Wildlife Fund Inc

Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)

Environment

Akashinga Inc

Deliver ecological stability and long-term protection of large-scale wilderness by supporting and empowering local communities.

Animals

Amazon Conservation Team

The amazon conservation team (act) partners with indigenous and other local communities to protect tropical forests and strengthen traditional culture.

Science & Tech

Rainforest Alliance Inc

RA works at the intersection of business, agriculture & forests to improve lives & protect nature by transforming how land is used, production of goods & consumer choices.

—

Rainforest Alliance Holding Inc

RA works at the intersection of business, agriculture & forests to improve lives & protect nature by transforming how land is used, production of goods & consumer choices.

Environment

Conservation International Foundation

Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.

Environment

Rainforest Foundation Inc

The purpose of rainforest foundation us is to support indigenous peoples and forest communities in their efforts to secure their lands, protect their environment, and uphold their rights.

Environment

Ocean Conservancy

Ocean conservancy unites science, people, and policy to protect our ocean, today and for generations to come.

Environment

World Resources Institute

Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.": - count it: our work is…

International

National Audubon Society Inc

We work towards a future where birds thrive across the americas because audubon is a powerful, diverse, and ever-growing force for conservation. (continued on schedule o).

Environment

African Wildlife Foundation Inc

Awf's mission is to ensure wildlife and wild lands thrive in modern africa. we work to equip african governments, institutions, business, and communities with the tools, insights, and support they need to define, own, and realize a…

Animals

Rainforest Trust

Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.

International

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Sierra Club Foundation; the most unlike its peers is Unshattered Inc. 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

15 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. 15 of the 19 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)

15/15

Grantees still filing

12/15

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Environment$400,000International$380,000Other$217,000Recreation & Sports$150,000Human Services$130,000Youth Development$20,000Employment$5,000Education$3,000

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.

American Online Giving Foundation IncDE7.2× affinity4 shared granteesties to 2 of 2Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 RJ Salerno Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The RJ Salerno Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

2report 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 RJ Salerno’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