How much does Wilderness River Foundation give?

Wilderness River Foundation reported 27 grants totaling $288,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 21 and 26 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does Wilderness River Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (34%), Environment (24%), Health (9%).

Who are Wilderness River Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Prescott College Inc ($330k), Children & Nature Network ($130k), Wilderness Inquiry Inc ($52k).

Does Wilderness River Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 4% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Wilderness River Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Wilderness River Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Arizona Community Foundation, Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, Xcel Energy Foundation.

Where is Wilderness River Foundation based?

Wilderness River Foundation is based in MN.

Wilderness River Foundation

Wilderness River Foundation at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· Private foundation

Wilderness River Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$288k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$120k

Largest

01What it funds

0196% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Education$330kEnvironment$239kHealth$85kYouth Development$60kRecreation & Sports$55kReligion$54kInternational$44kHuman Services$40kOther$0

02FY2025 · 27 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k22 grants · $96k
$10k–50k4 grants · $72k
$50k–250k1 grant · $120k

$4,000

Median grant

States reached

$4.6M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
PRESCOTT COLLEGE	$120,000
CHILDREN AND NATURE NETWORK	$40,000
WILDERNESS INQUIRY	$12,000
ECOSA INSTITUTE	$10,000
DETROIT LAKES COMMUNITY AND CULTURAL CENTER	$10,000
YOUNG LIFE	$8,000
PELICAN LAKE SAILING SCHOOL	$6,000
IRONWOOD SPRINGS CHRISTIAN RANCH	$6,000
JONI AND FRIENDS INTERNATIONAL DISABILITY	$4,000
UNSEEN - HUMAN TRAFFICKING	$4,000
YAVAPAI EXCEPTIONAL INDUSTRIES	$4,000
AIN DAH YUNG CENTER	$4,000
PELICAN LAKES COMMUNITY FDN	$4,000
Individual grant recipient	$4,000
LAUNCH PAD TEEN CENTER	$4,000

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 (FY20–25, $50k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-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.

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.

99%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$968k · 27 repeat orgs$14k to everyone else

27 repeat relationships: 26 still active in FY2025, 1 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$968k

$4k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+57%

+85%

Still filing today

81%

50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationHealthHuman ServicesEnvironmentYouth DevelopmentRecreation & SportsOther

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

WI
WILDERNESS INQUIRY INC
6× · 2020–2025 · $52k · revenue +221%
YL
YOUNG LIFE
6× · 2020–2025 · $37k · revenue +62%
IS
IRONWOOD SPRINGS CHRISTIAN RANCH INC
6× · 2020–2025 · $32k · revenue +83%

Funded once

IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2020 · $2k
HF
HIGHLAND FRIENDSHIP CLUBgraduated
one grant, 2021 · $2k · revenue +85%

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.

Wild Arizona

Wild Arizonas mission is to protect, unite, and restore wild lands and waters across Arizona and beyond, for the enrichment and health of all generations, and to ensure Arizona's native plants and animals a lasting home in wild nature.

Environment

Wild Rockies Field Institute Inc

To broaden the nature of a liberal arts education; teach critical thinking about social & environmental issues; foster understanding of & respect for natural & human communities; & cultivate a sense of place that encourages personal,…

Education

Environmental Traveling Companions

ETC provides accessible outdoor adventures including whitewater rafting, sea kayaking and leadership training, for people with disabilities, youth from under-resourced backgrounds and volunteer guides.

Environment

Yampatika

Yampatika's mission is to inspire environmental stewardship through education. They fulfil that mission by developing environmental learning opportunities that serve the children and adults of Northwest Colorado.

Environment

Cowiche Canyon Conservancy

Protecting our shrub-steppe and connecting people to this vanishing landscape.

—

Grand Canyon Youth Inc

Grand Canyon Youth (GCY) offers educational outdoor expeditions that connect young people (ages 10 19) to the transformative power of the rivers and canyons of the Southwest. GCY has served over 14,000 youth in the 28 years since its…

Recreation & Sports

Discover Your Northwest

Discover Your Northwest promotes the discovery of northwest public lands, enriches the experience of visitors and builds community stewardship of these special places today and for generations to come.

Recreation & Sports

Wenatchee River Institute

Wenatchee river institute provides environmental learning experiences connecting people, communities and the natural world.

Arts & Culture

Greater Yellowstone Coalition

Greater yellowstone coalition works with all people to protect the lands, waters, and wildlife of the greater yellowstone ecosystem, now and for future generations.

Environment

Tonto Creek Camp

To provide youth opportunities to explore the natural world, giving them outdoor experiences that will sustain and enrich their physical and mental well-being throughout their lives.

Youth Development

Wild Whatcom

Wild Whatcom's mission is to foster lifelong connections with nature and community through outdoor exploration and service.

Education

The Kiva Center

The Kiva Center's mission is to build inner strength and compassion in youth through transformational nature-connection experiences.

Environment

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wilderness Inquiry Inc; the most unlike its peers is Amistad Worldwide. 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

24 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. 24 of the 30 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)

24/24

Grantees still filing

19/24

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$588,000Education$141,500Environment$62,000Health$60,000Youth Development$58,000Human Services$50,000Recreation & Sports$22,000

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.

Arizona Community FoundationAZ19.5× affinity8 shared granteesties to 7 of 7Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Arizona Community Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · 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 Wilderness River Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Wilderness River Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

3report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Wilderness River Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Wilderness River 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.

Play a game based on Wilderness River’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