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The Sonoran Institute Inc at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

The Sonoran Institute Inc

The sonoran institute's mission is to connect people and communities with the natural resources that nourish and sustain them.

$124k
Granted FY2025still arriving
6
Grants FY2025still arriving
3
States reached
$70k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
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 2025.

Environment$152kPublic Benefit$105kAnimals$70kCommunity Improvement$53kHuman Services$10k
02FY2025 · 6 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 6 grants below total $117,203, the rows itemized in this filing. The $123,891 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $6,688 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k2 grants · $17k
  • $10k–50k3 grants · $30k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $70k
$10,000
Median grant
3
States reached
$4.4M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
TUCSON BIRD ALLIANCE$69,775
CITY OF RIALTO$10,000
TOWN OF RIDGWAY$10,000
INDIO WATER AUTHORITY$10,000
TOWN OF SUPERIOR$9,290
TOWN OF FREDERICK$8,138
02The need
03

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 69% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%TUCSON BIRD ALLIANCE: $70k → 15%CITY OF GLOBE: $10k → 19%INDIO WATER AUTHORITY: $10k → 11%CITY OF RIALTO: $10k → 14%WEST CONSULTANTS INC: $7k → 14%TOWN OF RIDGWAY: $10k → 7%COUNTY OF GRAND: $10k → 7%HEAD WATERS ALLIANCE: $10k → 9%TOWN OF FREDERICK: $8k → 9%DEL CORAZON CONSULTING: $10k → 10%CITY OF THORNTON: $10k → 10%LightHawk: $30k → 11%CITY OF LONGMONT: $10k → 12%City Of Denver: $6k → 12%Town of Rico: $5k → 13%PUEBLO COUNTY GOVERNMENT: $10k → 15%SAN LUIS VALLEY: $20k → 17%The Nature Conservancy: $31k → 7%BOARD PUBLIC UTILITY: $10k → 10%Watershed Management Group: $34k → 15%CITY OF GREELEY: $8k → 9%LightHawk: $15k → 11%TOWN OF SUPERIOR: $9k → 12%Watershed Management Group Inc: $7k → 15%TOWN OF PLATTEVILLE: $10k → 9%SAN XAVIER DISTRICT OF THE: $10k → 15%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.
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 field
04the grantee network

5 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. 5 of the 25 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
5/5
Grantees still filing
2/5
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

THE NATURE CONSERVANCY: $31,000 · OtherTHE NATURE CONSERVANCYSAN LUIS VALLEY: $20,000 · OtherSAN LUIS VALLEYTOWN OF PLATTEVILLE: $10,000 · OtherTOWN OF RIDGWAY: $10,000 · OtherLONGMONT MUSEUM: $10,000 · OtherPUEBLO COUNTY DHS: $10,000 · OtherBOARD PUBLIC UTILITY: $10,000 · OtherCITY OF GLOBE: $10,000 · OtherLARIMER COUNTY CONSERVATION CORPS: $10,000 · OtherSAN XAVIER DISTRICT OF THE: $10,000 · OtherTHORNTON PD: $10,000 · OtherINDIO WATER AUTHORITY: $10,000 · OtherDEL CORAZON CONSULTING: $10,000 · OtherGRAND COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH: $10,000 · OtherCity Of Rialto: $10,000 · OtherTOWN OF SUPERIOR: $9,290 · OtherTOWN OF FREDERICK: $8,138 · OtherCITY OF GREELEY: $7,500 · Other+3 more: $17,830 · Other+3 moreLIGHTHAWK: $45,454 · EnvironmentLIGHTHAWKWatershed Management Group Inc: $41,000 · EnvironmentWatershed Management Group I…HEADWATERS ALLIANCE: $10,000 · EnvironmentHEADWATERS ALLIANCETucson Audubon Society: $69,775 · AnimalsTucson Audubon Socie…
Other$223,758Environment$96,454Animals$69,775

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetLIGHTHAWK: $45,454 over 2y, 2.1% of budgetWatershed Management Group Inc: $41,000 over 2y, 2.4% of budgetTHE NATURE CONSERVANCY: $31,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetHEADWATERS ALLIANCE: $10,000 over 1y, 7.5% of budget
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.

  • Who funds Tucson Audubon Society ↗
  • Who funds LIGHTHAWK ↗
  • Who funds Watershed Management Group Inc ↗
  • Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
  • Who funds HEADWATERS ALLIANCE ↗

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.

National Fish and Wil…Donor Advised Charita…Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
National Fish and Wildlife FoundationDC12.2× affinity4 shared granteesties to 3 of 3Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation · Donor Advised Charitable Giving 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 Sonoran Institute Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Sonoran Institute Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%3%6%10%funder's share of their income ↑0%15%30%45%60%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–60%
    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 25 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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    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