· Public charity
The Vital Ground Foundation Inc
Vital ground works to ensure the recovery and long-term survival of grizzly bears and the many native species that share their range through the protection and restoration of wildlife habitat and landscape linkages, and by supporting community-based programs that prevent conflicts between people and wildlife.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 3 grants below total $26,710 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $70,400 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $43,690 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $6k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $21k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| METHOW VALLEY BEAR AWARE | $11,210 |
| TETON REGIONAL LAND TRUST | $10,000 |
| BLACKFOOT CHALLENGE | $5,500 |
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 6%. 100% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 17% of The Vital Ground Foundation Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 74% of the giving stays in MT; read by stated purpose it is 68% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
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 foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +109% since the first grant, against +39% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2024, 4 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, 21% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $21k 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
- MVMADISON VALLEY RANCHLANDS GROUP2× · 2018–2019 · $15k · revenue +39%
- BCBLACKFOOT CHALLENGE INC2× · 2019–2024 · $14k · revenue +162%
- WMWILDLIFE MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE INC2× · 2018–2019 · $11k · revenue +9%
Funded once
- HOHEART OF THE ROCKIES INITIATIVEgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $20k · revenue +39%
- PLPiikani Lodge Health Institutegraduatedone grant, 2021 · $14k · revenue +146%
- NWNATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATIONgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +39%
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.
Promote wildlife habitat
Promote research and actions to save wildlife.
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.
To promote science-based wildlife management that fosters ecosystem health and dynamic equilibrium between species throughout the state of wyoming.
Advancing sustainability in the western area of the united states through a series of programs and activities designed to promote better ranching practices. a strong focus is to provide ranchers with the information, tools, technical…
Vision: a healthy and resilient big thompson watershed benefitting fish, wildlife, and the people itserves through collaborative efforts for current and future generations. mission: working with others to take action that protects and…
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)
Working for a wild yaak through science, education, and bold action.
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.
Upper missouri waterkeeper protects fishable, swimmable, drinkable water throughout the 25,000 square miles of montana's upper missouri river basin of montana. to accomplish this mission we actively engage with citizens, stakeholders and…
Wildlands Network works to reconnect, restore and rewild North America so that life-in all its diversity-can thrive.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Blackfoot Challenge Inc and the most unlike its peers is Great Bear Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 17 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 HEART OF THE ROCKIES INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds MADISON VALLEY RANCHLANDS GROUP ↗
- Who funds Piikani Lodge Health Institute ↗
- Who funds BLACKFOOT CHALLENGE INC ↗
- Who funds METHOW VALLEY CITIZENS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds SWAN VALLEY CONNECTIONS ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION ↗
- Who funds TETON REGIONAL LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds PEOPLE AND CARNIVORES INC ↗
- Who funds THE MONTANA LAND RELIANCE ↗
- Who funds BIG HOLE WATERSHED COMMITTEE INC ↗
- Who funds GREAT BEAR FOUNDATION ↗
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 tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: The Nature Conservancy · Patagoniaorg · The Wilderness Society · National Fish and Wildlife Foundation · Heart of the Rockies Initiative · Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Inc · Resources Legacy Fund · Blackfoot Challenge Inc · The High Stakes Foundation · National Forest Foundation · Network for Good · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc
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 Vital Ground Foundation Inc 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.
- Wildlife Management Institute Inc — 100% of income from government
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 Vital Ground Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Vital Ground Foundation Inc 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.