· Public charity
Windward Fund
The WINDWARD FUND advances public awareness about conservation, climate and environmental issues, sustainable food systems, and the protection of land, wildlife, and other natural resources.
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 458 grants below total $137,706,713 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $176,388,057 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $38,681,344 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 $10k4 grants · $28k
- $10k–50k36 grants · $759k
- $50k–250k303 grants · $34M
- $250k+115 grants · $103M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS | $8,254,990 |
| ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INC | $7,765,690 |
| CARBON MAPPER INC | $5,000,000 |
| HOURGLASS CLIMATE INC | $3,948,938 |
| INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNANCE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT | $3,438,500 |
| THE ENERGY FOUNDATION | $3,423,333 |
| CORNELL UNIVERSITY | $2,991,652 |
| FRONTIER CLIMATE MANAGEMENT LLC | $2,828,213 |
| WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE | $2,296,667 |
| NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC | $2,296,667 |
| MIGHTY EARTH INC | $2,232,657 |
| ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE | $1,960,000 |
| MERIDIAN INSTITUTE | $1,400,000 |
| REWIRING AMERICA INC | $1,320,330 |
| TIDES FOUNDATION | $1,270,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $15.7M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 91% of those 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.
Which US states your grants reach
Grants abroad, by region — $38M on the FY2024 return
Schedule F, as filed: 7 regions. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.
Stated purpose: ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS · AGRICULTURE, FOOD, NUTRITION
Stated purpose: ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS · AGRICULTURE, FOOD, NUTRITION
Stated purpose: ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS
Stated purpose: ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS
Stated purpose: ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS · AGRICULTURE, FOOD, NUTRITION
Stated purpose: ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS
Stated purpose: ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS
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. Grants abroad on Schedule F are filed by region, purpose and amount with no recipient name, so they are shown by region and cannot be placed on the country map or matched to a grantee.
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 +50% since the first grant, against +17% for the ones you funded once.
386 repeat relationships — 277 still active in FY2024, 109 since wound down; 166 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, 68% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $43M 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
Potential Energy Coalition Inc4× · 2021–2024 · $31M · revenue +121% · 43% of their budget
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED5× · 2018–2024 · $15M · revenue +111%- IFINSTITUTE FOR GOVERNANCE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT4× · 2020–2024 · $13M · revenue +15% · 60% of their budget
Funded once
- HPHOME PLANET FUNDone grant, 2022 · $20M · revenue -96%
- IAINTER AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT BANKone grant, 2023 · $3.5M
- TETaproot Earthgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $2.0M · revenue +30% · 27% of their budget
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 to fight against fossil fuel executives and industries that have turned our communities into dumping grounds for toxic waste, poisoning our air, water, lan, and bodies. We organize to oppose giant oil refineries, dirty…
The Climate Center is a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.
Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI) uses data-driven advocacy and litigation to fight for forests, communities and the climate.
To empower frontline communities to lead nature-based solutions that advance climate justice, ecosystem restoration, and resilient livelihoods through connecting locally-led initiatives to funding, markets, and technical support.
The Alliance for Collective Action convenes leaders of environmental and social movements to advance solutions for a thriving planet. We advance our mission through the Alliance Center building and community, as well as through Collective…
The climate equity action fund (ceaf) works hand-in-hand with community-based partners in critical states across the country to secure and sustain policy wins for climate and clean energy. building on over a decade of trust with leading…
Climate catalyst sparks collective action to tackle the biggest climate challenges we face today: cutting emissions in heavy industries.
The national caucus of environmental legislators empowers a nonpartisan network of legislative champions to protect, conserve, and improve the natural and human environment.
To research and develop healthy climate solutions comprising global food security, ecosystem regeneration and carbon balance in seas and soils.
E3g is a leading international not-for-profit think tank specialising in climate diplomacy harnessing expertise in the politics and economics of climate change.
To cultivate leaders and community partnerships to advance environmental justice.
To educate workers and the public about policies that will build a clean energy economy at the scale climate science demands, create good union jobs, and create more equitable communities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (See) Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Cynthia & George Mitchell Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 17 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 11% of your grantees by number, and just 10% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
816 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 816 of the 900 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 Carbon Mapper Inc ↗
- Who funds Potential Energy Coalition Inc ↗
- Who funds HOME PLANET FUND ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNANCE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ↗
- Who funds ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS INC ↗
- Who funds CLEAN AIR TASK FORCE INC ↗
- Who funds Rocky Mountain Institute ↗
- Who funds THE ENERGY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds TIDES CENTER ↗
- Who funds C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group Inc ↗
- Who funds The Partnership Project Inc ↗
- Who funds WATER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds HOURGLASS CLIMATE INC ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds ISAIAH ↗
- Who funds Cascade Climate Inc ↗
- Who funds Cornell University ↗
- Who funds Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives ↗
- Who funds CERES INC ↗
- Who funds Houston in Action Network ↗
- Who funds Earthworks ↗
- Who funds The Pew Charitable Trusts ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR LOUISIANA ↗
- Who funds SIXTEEN THIRTY FUND ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds MIGHTY EARTH INC ↗
- Who funds TIDES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PROGEORGIA STATE TABLE INC ↗
- Who funds The Global FoodBanking Network ↗
- Who funds BVM CAPACITY BUILDING INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds TEXAS FREEDOM NETWORK EDUCATION FUND ↗
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: United States Energy Foundation · Solutions Project Inc · Rockefeller Family Fund Inc · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · The Schmidt Family Foundation · Movement Strategy Center · NEO Philanthropy Inc · Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (See) Inc · People's Action Institute · Natural Resources Defense Council Inc · Freedom Together Foundation · Common Counsel 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 Windward Fund 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.
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution — 63% of income from government
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% of income from government
- Casa Inc — 8% of income from government
- Ceres Inc — 0% 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.