How much does The Wilderness Society give?

The Wilderness Society reported 59 itemized grants totaling $1,391,215, out of $1,587,686 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 37 and 109 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Wilderness Society fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Environment (91%), Human Services (5%), Arts & Culture (2%).

Who are The Wilderness Society's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Wilderness Society Action Fund ($2.0M), Appalachian Mountain Club ($990k), The Young Men's Christian Association of Greater Seattle (6871) ($833k).

Does The Wilderness Society fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 32% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Wilderness Society?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Resources Legacy Fund, Western Conservation Foundation, Patagoniaorg.

Where is The Wilderness Society based?

The Wilderness Society is based in DC.

The Wilderness Society

The Wilderness Society at a glance Mostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

The Wilderness Society

THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY works to protect america's public lands from threats like development and privatization, so wild places remain intact, accessible and available for future generations.

$1.6M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$150k

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$16MHuman Services$843kArts & Culture$317kAnimals$289kRecreation & Sports$40kPhilanthropy$35kCivil Rights$20kEducation$10kOther$0

02FY2025 · 59 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 59 grants below total $1,391,215, the rows itemized in this filing. The $1,587,686 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $196,471 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 $10k7 grants · $51k
$10k–50k46 grants · $820k
$50k–250k6 grants · $520k

$15,000

Median grant

States reached

$127M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY ACTION FUND	$150,000
VET VOICE FOUNDATION INC	$110,000
RESOURCE LEGACY FUND	$85,000
WILDERNESS WORKSHOP	$60,000
CONSERVATION ECONOMICS INSTITUTE	$60,000
GREENLATINOS	$55,250
RISING ROUTES ALLIANCE	$42,000
BACKCOUNTRY HUNTERS & ANGLERS	$40,000
COMMUNITY INITIATIVES	$35,000
NEW MEXICO WILDERNESS ALLIANCE	$34,500
GRAND CANYON TRUST	$30,000
OUTDOOR AFRO	$30,000
NATIVE AMERICAN LAND CONSERVANCY	$25,300
EAGLE MARKET STREETS DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION	$25,100
ALASKA WILDERNESS LEAGUE	$25,000

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, $1.2M) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 24% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-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.

85%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$16M · 128 repeat orgs$2.8M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +45% since the first grant, against +15% for those funded once.

128 repeat relationships: 36 still active in FY2025, 92 since wound down; 22 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

128

126

Total granted

$16M

$2.5M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+45%

+15%

Still filing today

91%

85%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 74% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $364k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EnvironmentArts & CultureHuman ServicesEducationAnimalsCommunity 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

Appalachian Mountain Club
7× · 2017–2023 · $990k · revenue +32%
TY
THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER SEATTLE (6871)
6× · 2018–2023 · $833k · revenue +50%
CG
COTTONWOOD GULCH EXPEDITIONS
6× · 2018–2023 · $786k · revenue +91%

Funded once

TU
TROUT UNLIMITED INCgraduated
one grant, 2024 · $100k · revenue +31%
SR
SILVIX RESOURCESgraduated
one grant, 2024 · $85k · revenue +56%
NV
NATIVE VILLAGE OF THE VENETIE TRIBAL GOVERNMENT
one grant, 2018 · $65k

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.

Cascadia Wildlands

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…

Environment

Oregon Natural Resources Council Fund

Oregon Wild works to protect and restore Oregon's wildlands, wildlife and waters as an enduring legacy for future generations.

Environment

Alaska Wildlife Alliance

Support ecosystem-based wildlife management by increasing public awareness of wildlife issues, responding to information requests, advocating for science-based wildlife habitat management through proposal and comment submissions, and…

Environment

Santa Fe Forest Coalition

Educate the public on forest conservation issues in New Mexico

Environment

San Juan Citizens Alliance

The San Juan Citizens Alliance advocates for clean air, pure water, and healthy lands - the foundations of resilient communities, ecosystems and economies in the San Juan Basin.

Environment

Sustainable Conservation

Sustainable Conservation advances the collaborative stewardship of Californias land, air, and water for the benefit of nature and people. For over three decades, Sustainable Conservation has built coalitions of people with different…

Environment

Boulder Watershed Collective

The Boulder Watershed Collective is a 501c3 non-profit stakeholder-driven organization established to address forested watershed health,resiliency and stewardship. We have three program areas: ClimateAdaptation and Resilience Watershed…

Environment

Sageland Collaborative

To provide science-based strategies for wildlife and land conservation.

Environment

Native Ecosystems Council

Promote wildlife habitat

Environment

The Jmt Wilderness Conservancy

Working to restore the watersheds, wilderness, and wildlife in the high sierra nevada following the john muir trail (est. 1915) for all life in california.

Environment

Western Rivers Conservancy

Western rivers conservancy's mission is to protect outstanding river ecosystems in the western united states. continued on schedule o.we acquire land to conserve critical habitat, provide public access for compatible use and enjoyment, and…

Environment

Great Basin Resource Watch

Natural resource protection: Protected communities and the environment from the negative impacts of mineral development; provided support to communities impacted by mining

Environment

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Environment America Inc; the most unlike its peers is Ndponics. 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

248 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. 248 of the 282 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)

245/248

Grantees still filing

160/248

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Environment$7,151,197Other$5,869,415Education$1,146,500Human Services$1,139,000Arts & Culture$849,600Animals$814,767Civil Rights$814,104

Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.

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.

Resources Legacy FundCA116.4× affinity68 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Resources Legacy Fund · Western Conservation Foundation · Patagoniaorg · The Pew Charitable Trusts · Conservation Lands Foundation · Wilburforce Foundation · National Forest Foundation · Environmental Defense Fund Incorporated · Natural Resources Defense Council Inc · The Schmidt Family Foundation · The New-Land Foundation Inc · Maki 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 Wilderness Society funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Wilderness Society. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

3get no government money at all

47report 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 Wilderness Society’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