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Virginia · Public charity

Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation Inc

To connect people to the marine environment, inspiring a more sustainable future. We aspire to be a driver in conservation, education, tourism, and sustainability, leading the charge to save wildlife and their ecosystems.

$41k
Granted FY2025(still arriving)
2
Itemized grants FY2025
5
Organizations funded FY2024
20%
First-time grantees FY2024
Read the full brief
Itemized, FY2025
$18k
The rest is grants the schedule does not break out
Median grant, FY2025
$10,000
Largest grant, FY2025
$10,000
Organizations funded a year
1 to 5
FY2021 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025
2
Total assets, FY2025
$39M

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 20% of the organizations Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation Inc funded were first-time grantees, receiving 17% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k went to new ones.

50%100%’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’22’23’24
AnimalsOther
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2025still arriving2$18k50%
FY20245$61k20%
FY20234$44k50%
FY20222$20k100%
FY20211$187kn/a
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2021 to 2025.

Public Benefit$187kAnimals$73kEnvironment$68k

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2021 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
Virginia Beach City Public Schools$187,0001n/a
Oceanic Society Expeditions$48,00031%
Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation$30,00030%
Leatherback Trust Inc$28,50031%
American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums Inc$17,00020%
Ecolibrium Inc$10,0001n/a
Odysea Aquarium Foundation Inc$7,5001n/a

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 set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

National Fish and Wildlife FoundationDC13.2× affinity4 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: National Fish and Wildlife 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.

Compare Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation Inc with peer funders

About Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation Inc

How much does Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation Inc give?
Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation Inc reported 2 itemized grants totaling $17,500, out of $40,500 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 1 and 5 organizations a year over FY2021 to FY2024.
What does Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation Inc fund?
By grant dollars over FY2021 to FY2025, its largest causes are Public Benefit (57%), Animals (22%), Environment (21%).
Who are Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation Inc's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2021 to FY2025: Virginia Beach City Public Schools ($187k), Oceanic Society Expeditions ($48k), Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation ($30k).
Does Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation Inc fund new organizations?
In FY2024, 20% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Which funders back the same organizations as Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation Inc?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
Where is Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation Inc based?
Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation Inc is based in VA.

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 7 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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