· Public charity
Zoological Society of Cincinnati
Creating adventure, conveying knowledge, conserving nature, and serving the community.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 14 grants below total $387,825 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $952,427 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $564,602 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 · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $16k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $194k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $178k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON | $106,000 |
| WILDLIFE CONSERVATION NETWORK | $72,244 |
| SNOW LEOPARD CONSERVANCY | $31,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL RHINO FOUNDATION | $29,000 |
| GLOBAL CONSERVATION NETWORK | $25,000 |
| WILD NATURE INSTITUTE | $25,000 |
| WILD ENTRUST INTERNATIONAL | $20,000 |
| SAVE THE MANATEE CLUB | $20,000 |
| WORLD PARROT TRUST | $12,581 |
| RED PANDA NETWORK | $11,000 |
| FRIENDS OF BONOBOS | $10,000 |
| ELAKHA ALLIANCE | $10,000 |
| TURTLE SURVIVAL ALLIANCE | $9,000 |
| HOUSTON ZOO | $7,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 87% of your 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 — $442k on the FY2025 return
Schedule F, as filed: 6 regions, $434k to organizations and $8k to individuals. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.
Stated purpose: CHEETAH CONSERVATION · LION CONSERVATION · PENGUIN CONSERVATION
Stated purpose: CONSERVATION SUPPORT DONATION · YELLOW-HEADED TEMPLE TURTLE HABITAT FOR CONSERVATION AWARENESS AND SPECIES PROTECTION · COLLABORATIVE JAPANESE GIANT SALAMANDER CONSERVATION AND HABITAT RESTORATION
Stated purpose: CONSERVATION SUPPORT DONATION
Stated purpose: CONSERVATION SUPPORT DONATION
Stated purpose: CONSERVATION SUPPORT DONATION · SUPPORT SMALL WILD CAT RESEARCH & CONSERVATION
Stated purpose: MONITORING THE FIRST WILD SIHEK IN 36 YEARS
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 24% of Zoological Society of Cincinnati’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
15 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $54k 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
- TITHE INTERNATIONAL RHINO FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $231k · revenue +27%
- WEWILD ENTRUST INTERNATIONAL8× · 2017–2025 · $159k · revenue +41%
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY3× · 2019–2021 · $156k · revenue +44%
Funded once
- WUWASHINGTON UNIVERSITYone grant, 2023 · $50k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $22k · revenue +87%
- FSFLORIDA SOUTHWESTERN STATE COLLEGE PROF DONINIone grant, 2023 · $10k
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.
Protecting india's precious wildlife from poaching, habitat loss, and human exploitation since 1995.
Protecting the world's remaining primates by monitoring and exposing illegal trade, supporting a worldwide network of overseas sanctuaries and ngo's, publicising the plight of abused primates, and operating a sanctuary for resued gibbons.
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
Wildlife alliance is the leader in direct protection of forests and wildlife in tropical asia. our mission is to combat deforestation, biodiversity loss, climate change, and poverty by partnering with local communities and governments.…
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
The wildlife conservation society (wcs) saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature.
Endangered Species International is strongly committed to reversing the trend of human-induced species extinction, saving endangered animals, and preserving wild places.
To protect endangered species.
Panthera's mission is the conservation of the world's 40 wild cat species, many of which are endangered or threatened. panthera develops, implements and oversees wild cat conservation strategies on a global scale.
To ensure the survival of all orangutan species in their natural habitat and promote the welfare of all orangutans.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wildlife Conservation Network Inc and the most unlike its peers is Washington University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 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. 20 of the 23 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 INTERNATIONAL RHINO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WILD ENTRUST INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds WILDLIFE CONSERVATION NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL CONSERVATION NETWORK ↗
- Who funds SAVE THE MANATEE CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds WILD NATURE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Sea to Shore Alliance ↗
- Who funds Houston Zoo Inc ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL ELEPHANT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE TURTLE SURVIVAL ALLIANCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Snow Leopard Conservancy ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF BONOBOS ↗
- Who funds RED PANDA NETWORK ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL BIRD RESCUE ↗
- Who funds WORLD PARROT TRUST USA INC ↗
- Who funds Elakha Alliance ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL CONSERVATION ↗
- Who funds ASIAN ELEPHANT SUPPORT ↗
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: Columbus Zoological Park Association · Zoological Society of San Diego · Indianapolis Zoological Society Inc · Sacramento Zoological Society · Dallas Zoo Management Inc · Houston Zoo Inc · Jacksonville Zoological Society Inc · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · American Endowment Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Network for Good
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 Zoological Society of Cincinnati 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Elakha Alliance — 10% 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.