· Private foundation
WD Foundation
Its FY2020 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
87% of WD Foundation’s FY2020 grant dollars went to The Nature Conservancy, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2020 names 1 organization directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2020
- Under $10k1 grant · $2k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $14k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY | $14,000 |
| JODAVIESS CONSERVATION FOUNDATION | $2,157 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY18–18, $250) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
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.
7 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2020, 6 since wound down.
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 FY2020, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- ELENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY CENTER OF THE MIDWEST3× · 2017–2019 · $50k · revenue +72%
THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND2× · 2017–2018 · $2k · revenue +109%- CHCHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY2× · 2017–2018 · $500 · revenue +37%
Funded once
- FVFLATHEAD VALLEY COLLEGEone grant, 2019 · $5k
- TGTHE GROUNDWORK CENTERone grant, 2019 · $5k
- PAPresident and Fellows of Middlebury Collegegraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +47%
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.
Our mission is conserving West Michigans ecologically critical land. We protect land by creating public nature preserves, providing support to communities and local governments in creating natural areas, and helping private landowners…
To conserve the unique character of tennessee's natural and historic landscapes and sites for future generations.
The minnesota land trust protects and restores minnesota's most vital natural lands in order to provide wildlife habitat, clean water, outdoor experiences and scenic beauty for generations to come.
The organization's primary mission is conserving land where people and nature can thrive by creating green corridors linking existing public lands using conservation easments and outright purchase.
Conservation legacy engages future leaders who protect, restore, and enhance our nation's lands through community-based service.in 2024, conservation legacy engaged 2,524 participants who completed over 1.5 million service hours on public…
The mission of the lake champlain land trust is to save the scenic beauty, natural communities, and recreational amenities of lake champlain by permanently preserving significant islands, shoreline areas, and natural communities in the…
Safeguard southern michigan's land and water to support diverse, resilient, and thriving communities - forever
The mission of gtrlc is to protect significant natural, scenic and farm lands and advance land stewardship now and for future generations.
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
Glacial Lakes Conservancy, as a land trust, is a nonprofit organization that, as part of its mission, actively works to conserve land by undertaking or assisting in land or conservation easement acquisitions.
Preserving and enhancing the habitat of wildlife, such as sandhill cranes, waterfowl, raptors, which habitat expenses are supported by agricultural activities.
To protect and restore the ecological health of forest park and marquam nature park, maintain and enhance their extensive trails networks, promote equitable access, and inspire diverse community appreciation and stewardship of these iconic…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Trust for Public Land and the most unlike its peers is Save the Maah Daah Hey. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 22 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 THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY CENTER OF THE MIDWEST ↗
- Who funds LEELANAU CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds JO DAVIESS CONSERVATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Middlebury College ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds GLEN LAKE ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF NACHUSA GRASSLANDS ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds SAVE THE MAAH DAAH HEY ↗
- Who funds BUILDING ONE COMMUNITY CORP ↗
- Who funds FAITH IN PLACE ↗
- Who funds BRUSHWOOD CENTER AT RYERSON WOODS ↗
- Who funds THE LAND CONNECTION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE PRAIRIE ENTHUSIASTs INC ↗
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 Chicago Community Trust · Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 WD Foundation 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.
- President and Fellows of Middlebury College — 1% 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 WD Foundation?
Find your warmest path to WD Foundation 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.