Maryland · Nonprofit
BLUE WATER BALTIMORE
BLUE WATER BALTIMORE (Maryland) receives grants from 64 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,949,091 to it, the largest being NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION ($2,200,566). 42 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.6M
- Funders on record
- 64
- Grants received
- $6.9M
- Net assets
- $1.1M
What Blue Water Baltimore does
Mission
To restore the quality of baltimore's rivers, streams and harbor to foster a healthy environment, a strong economy, and thriving communities.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Nursery:Blue Water Baltimore's herring run nursery grows plants, trees and shrubs native to the chesapeake bay watershed. These plants are used in restoration projects and sold to residents and wholesale customers. Specialties of our nursery include designing and installing rain gardens and low maintenance native landscapes to reduce storm runoff. To aid residents, we provided landscape advice to 44 homes in the region. In 2025, 47 dedicated volunteers gave 1,074 hours of time to sell more than 49,000 native plants and 23 rain barrels.
$247,835 spent$300,070 earned by the program9% of program spendingWatershed restoration:Blue Water Baltimore's stormwater reduction efforts aim to reduce the volume of rain water runoff, or stormwater and the amount of pollution flowing into our streams. We work with communities, places of worship, and other institutions. We are working to engage residents in actions to reduce nutrient, sediment and other pollution from entering local streams in the patapsco and back river watersheds and ultimately the chesapeake bay.in 2025, we worked with 24 partners including congregations, schools, neighborhood associations, and hospitals to plan and construct green infrastructure projects that reduce and filter stormwater runoff. We completed the installation of 6 green stormwater infrastructure projects, including pavement removal, rain gardens, bioretentions, bioswales, and conservation landscaping. Projects include the village of 12 trees, stillmeadow community fellowship, miracle city seventh-day adventist church, the red shed village, st. Gabriel catholic church, and the maryland energy assistance building. These projects treat 7.88 acres (3.15 impervious acres) of our watershed each time it rains.
$814,620 spent$157,964 earned by the program31% of program spendingGreening:we planted 704 street trees in parks, school grounds, and along neighborhood streets in our watershed, totalling 2.35 acres of stormwater treated. Our street tree program created 124 new tree beds while removing 6,036 square feet of impervious surface in baltimore city. We gave away more than 1,090 trees to be planted in yards within baltimore city and county. If all giveaway trees were planted, this is the equivalent of 3.63 acres of new tree canopy. This will expand as the trees grow and spread their limbs.
$750,573 spent$229,083 earned by the program28% of program spendingWaterkeeper:Blue Water Baltimore maintains a rigorous long-term water quality monitoring program in baltimore's streams, rivers, and harbor in order to characterize the health of our localwaterways, hold polluters accountable, and advocate for stronger laws for clean water. In 2025, we collected thousands of individual measurements of water health which we used to develop regional water quality scores for our annual report card. The report card and all of the data we generate are available online at baltimorewaterwatch.org. Our data-mapping website is an invaluable tool for residents and visitors that helps them make informed decisions about how and when they can safely fish, paddle, and wade in our local waterways. Our waterkeeper team received and responded to 84 pollution reports from community members through various channels including social media, email, our pollution reporting hotline, and our online pollution reporting tool. These reports ranged from issues such as erosion and sediment control violations at construction sites, to sewage overflows and water main breaks. In 2025 we successfully concluded the consent decree in our clean water act lawsuit against fleischmann's…
$857,322 spent$14,909 earned by the program32% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,670,350.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2019 to 2020, from $766k to $1.8M (+141%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 43% · 2018 11% · 2019 19% · 2020 32% · 2021 26% · 2022 10% · 2023 10% · 2024 5% · 2025 22%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
80% of BLUE WATER BALTIMORE’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (88% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 6 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Sydnee Wilson Ruff
Executive director
Board chair
Anne Yastremski
Chairman
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 10 funders to 36 funders, grant income rose $664k → $1.4M.
10 of 64 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 14% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of BLUE WATER BALTIMORE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 64 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
BLUE WATER BALTIMORE has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 32% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
55% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund BLUE WATER BALTIMORE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 43% · 2018 58% · 2019 21% · 2020 36% · 2021 20% · 2022 37% · 2023 31% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
63% of BLUE WATER BALTIMORE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 66% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
55% of BLUE WATER BALTIMORE's grant income comes from Maryland funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $993k arriving through sponsors registered in 9 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
BLUE WATER BALTIMORE's funding base is broadening — from 10 funders to 36 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,209 environment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding BLUE WATER BALTIMORE receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $3.9M on record — $22k federal, $3.9M state.
- Environmental Protection Agency$22k
- Grant$3.9M
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like BLUE WATER BALTIMORE
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Maryland
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
66% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
73%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for BLUE WATER BALTIMORE: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds BLUE WATER BALTIMORE?
- BLUE WATER BALTIMORE (Maryland) receives grants from 64 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,949,091 to it, the largest being NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION ($2,200,566). 42 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does BLUE WATER BALTIMORE have?
- IRS filings report 64 organizations giving $6,949,091 in grants to BLUE WATER BALTIMORE, 42 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of BLUE WATER BALTIMORE?
- NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $2,200,566 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like BLUE WATER BALTIMORE find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Maryland. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Blue Water Baltimore →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 64 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing