Missouri · Nonprofit
Forest Park Forever Inc
Forest Park Forever Inc (Missouri) receives grants from 202 organizations whose IRS filings report $76,435,807 to it, the largest being TAYLOR FAMILY FOUNDATION ($18,160,000). 151 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $42M
- Funders on record
- 202
- Grants received
- $76M
- Net assets
- $244M
What Forest Park Forever Inc does
Mission
To restore, maintain and sustain forest park, in partnership with the city of st. Louis, as one of america's great urban public parks for a diverse community of visitors to enjoy, now and forever.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Park operations and maintenance: forest park forever partners with the city of st. Louis to maintain the city's largest park to accommodate 15.5 million visitors annually. Our nonprofit employs a team of horticulturists, gardeners, nature reserve technicians and an ecologist to maintain the park's landscapes and natural areas, and engineering, maintenance and landscape architecture professionals who coordinate with the city and contractors to maintain and repair park infrastructure, including sidewalks and roads, recreational facilities and fields, statues and monuments.
$8,932,469 spent54% of program spendingForest park forever maintains funding to be able to flexibly address the park's long-term and short-term needs while ensuring continued park access for visitors. Funds are also raised for multi-year capital projects that restore or improve major park features, and which forest park forever implements. In 2024 such projects included completing the multi-year restoration of three lakes on the east side of the park, constructing basketball courts in the north of the park near other court sports amenities, and completing design for the redevelopment and construction of steinberg skating rink, pavilion and surrounding 22 acres, to be called the glade.
$5,659,272 spent34% of program spendingEducation, volunteer, and visitor services - forest park forever operates the dennis and judith jones visitor and education center in partnership with explore st. Louis. This center welcomes and assists park users by providing forest park maps, information and directions and access to visitor resources for the st. Louis region. The center also serves as a gathering spot for runners, walkers and cyclists, birders, and various fitness groups. Visitor services are delivered via trained and knowledgeable paid staff and volunteers. The center includes a cafe, special event and meeting spaces, classrooms, exhibit space, public restrooms, secure locker facilities, a fully accessible playground, racquetball and handball courts, free public wifi and a bike repair station. In 2024, an estimated 238,000 visitors and park users came through the visitor and education center.
$1,564,216 spent$335,985 earned by the program9% of program spendingCommunication/community awareness - forest park forever serves as a hub of information for the st. Louis region on amenities and events in forest park, park improvements and temporary traffic closures, and cultural offerings. These are communicated through three seasonal print newsletters, bi-weekly email newsletters, social media, public website with 316,000 annual visits, and visitor center staff responding to in-person questions. The organization publishes a free visitor guide with maps of the park and its amenities, distributed in the park and at regional tourist destinations, and it manages a free interactive, gps enabled online map that engages 114,000 users annually.
$529,139 spent3% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $16,685,096.
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 2021 to 2022, from $231M to $200M (−14%).
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: 2021 4% · 2023 0% · 2024 0%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
79% of Forest Park Forever Inc’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (87% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 8 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
Lesley Hoffarth
President and executive director
Board chair
John Kemper
Chairperson
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 53 funders to 107 funders, grant income rose $617k → $6.3M.
13 of 202 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 11% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $8.6M from 6 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest St Louis Community Foundation Inc). These are real filings, and they are not money Forest Park Forever Inc raised.
From the IRS filings of Forest Park Forever Inc’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 202 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
Forest Park Forever Inc has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 24% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 38% · 2018 47% · 2019 22% · 2020 74% · 2021 17% · 2022 21% · 2023 39% — broadly stable.
“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 Forest Park Forever Inc's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 75% 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
98% of Forest Park Forever Inc's grant income comes from Missouri funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $8.0M arriving through sponsors registered in 10 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
Forest Park Forever Inc runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 330 environment nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 330 environment nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2024
Organizations like Forest Park Forever Inc
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 Missouri
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
79% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
56%
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 Forest Park Forever Inc: 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 Forest Park Forever Inc?
- Forest Park Forever Inc (Missouri) receives grants from 202 organizations whose IRS filings report $76,435,807 to it, the largest being TAYLOR FAMILY FOUNDATION ($18,160,000). 151 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Forest Park Forever Inc have?
- IRS filings report 202 organizations giving $76,435,807 in grants to Forest Park Forever Inc, 151 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Forest Park Forever Inc?
- TAYLOR FAMILY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $18,160,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Forest Park Forever Inc find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Missouri. 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 Forest Park Forever →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 202 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