Nebraska · Nonprofit
FONTENELLE FOREST
FONTENELLE FOREST (Nebraska) receives grants from 58 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,805,153 to it, the largest being THE SHERWOOD FOUNDATION ($656,315). 39 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $6.4M
- Funders on record
- 58
- Grants received
- $3.8M
- Net assets
- $21M
What Fontenelle Forest does
Mission
To provide a place where people can experience and enjoy the quiet wild of nature. We want to inspire current and future generations to care for the natural world.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Educational programs - Fontenelle Forest provides educational programs for all ages, from preschoolers to seniors. In 2025, Fontenelle Forest provided 726 formal educational opportunities for over 27,000 visitors through our school, outreach, and public programs. Our program curriculum incorporates hands-on learning and explores several topics such as species identification, habitat and resource use, historical significance, and raptor education. Most programming takes place at the forest, though staff educators do provide statewide outreach at schools, libraries, senior living communities, other community organizations and events.
$632,477 spent$127,737 earned by the program28% of program spendingNatural resources/conservation - Fontenelle Forest is one of nebraska's oldest conservation organizations and one of the largest private nature centers in the nation. The forest encompasses over 2,100 acres of forest, prairie, wetlands, & endangered oak savanna ecosystems along the missouri river. Our dedicated staff & volunteers are practitioners of restoration ecology,employing a variety of techniques, including biodiversity surveying, erosion control, wildlife management, invasive species control, thinning, and prescribed burning. These efforts promote strong biodiversity & environmental resiliency in an ever-changing urban landscape. Forest land stewards facilitate professional training, present at industry conferences, & collaborate on prescribed burns on both the forest and partner agency properties.
$762,703 spent$120 earned by the program34% of program spendingNature centers - for over a century, Fontenelle Forest has provided a place for the community to learn about local ecosystems and to experience the natural world. Forest staff and volunteers engage members, visitors and guests through conservation, education, outdoor recreation, and historical preservation of the organization's properties. Fontenelle Forest nature center in bellevue and neale woods nature reserve in omaha provide places for the community to explore the natural world through exhibits, play spaces, a mile-long accessible boardwalk and 24 miles of hiking trails.
$453,121 spent$394,276 earned by the program20% of program spendingRaptor outreach - Fontenelle Forest's raptor outreach program is designed to teach the general public about birds of prey, their role within the natural world, and the impact of human activity on them and their habitats - helping Fontenelle Forest to achieve its mission of inspiring current and future generations to care for the natural world. These educational raptor ambassadors serve as educational ambassadors for outreach programs at schools, libraries, retirement communities, and other community organizations, in addition to being onsite at the Fontenelle Forest raptor woodland refuge. In 2025, Fontenelle Forest provided 241 formal educational opportunities for over 15,500 individuals through our school, outreach, and public programs.
$393,597 spent$43,427 earned by the program18% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,241,898.
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.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $16M to $19M (+19%).
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: 2020 15% · 2021 12% · 2022 1% · 2023 10% · 2024 1% · 2025 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 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
Tyler Irvine
Executive director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 9 funders to 27 funders, grant income rose $104k → $982k.
9 of 58 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 10% 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 FONTENELLE FOREST’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 58 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
FONTENELLE FOREST has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 17% of grant income, and it takes 6 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 6 funders to its left
29% 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 FONTENELLE FOREST.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 69% · 2018 40% · 2019 25% · 2020 27% · 2021 29% · 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
31% of FONTENELLE FOREST's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 67% 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
90% of FONTENELLE FOREST's grant income comes from Nebraska funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $367k arriving through sponsors registered in 7 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.
Organizations like FONTENELLE FOREST
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 Nebraska
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
68% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
75%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for FONTENELLE FOREST: 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 FONTENELLE FOREST?
- FONTENELLE FOREST (Nebraska) receives grants from 58 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,805,153 to it, the largest being THE SHERWOOD FOUNDATION ($656,315). 39 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does FONTENELLE FOREST have?
- IRS filings report 58 organizations giving $3,805,153 in grants to FONTENELLE FOREST, 39 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of FONTENELLE FOREST?
- THE SHERWOOD FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $656,315 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like FONTENELLE FOREST find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Nebraska. 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 Fontenelle Forest →
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 58 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