California · Nonprofit
FUTURE 500
FUTURE 500 (California) receives grants from 3 organizations whose IRS filings report $119,500 to it, the largest being THE ENERGY FOUNDATION ($100,000). 0 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $1.0M
- Funders on record
- 3
- Grants received
- $120k
- Net assets
- $1.1M
What Future 500 does
Mission
See attached statementprimary missionFuture 500 builds trust between corporations, advocates, investors, and philanthropists to advance business as a force for good. We are experts in stakeholder engagement with over 25 years of experience depolarizing conflict by building alliances between adversarial stakeholders. We utilize market-based approaches to solve social and environmental issues around energy & climate, food & water, materials & supply chains, and people & power. Through genuine stakeholder engagement, Future 500 aligns the power of the private sector with the purpose of its most critical stakeholders. We envision a world that realizes sustainable economic growth by addressing social and environmental externalities with market-based solutions. We unite the corporate, philanthropic, and ngo sectors to break through gridlock, encourage thoughtful dialogue, and achieve broad systemic change. We find that uncommon ideas often reveal uncommon solutions.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Energy/climateFuture 500 views the energy transition as a critical thread across all our sustainability projects. To that end, our organization continuously seeks to build partnerships with energy companies and activists. We work across several energy sectors, including, but not limited to, coal, natural gas, oil refining and exploration, and biofuels. We believe that smart, comprehensive energy policy can help drive systemic change down the supply chain. We believe that a price on carbon is an economic, security, fiscal, and environmental imperative. To help drive this effort, we have crafted two core policy principles that can unite the cross-sectoral political support needed for climate policy that is friendly to people, the economy, and the environment. Future 500 has brought together companies, ngos, investors, and philanthropists to support this policy. We see the energy transition toward a low-carbon future as a dynamic and evolving arena where we seek to play an important role in connecting corporations to their critical stakeholders. We believe that direct engagement in an increasingly polarized world will help us move past conflict from the community level to the global…
$258,056 spent36% of program spendingMaterials/supply chainsince our inception, Future 500 has been at the forefront of recycling policy and materials stewardship. In fact, our engagement model pulls from the success of a corporate-ngo alliance built by our founder to pass the ca bottle bill. As we look to the future, we acknowledge that the us and other global geographies need more comprehensive, circular economy structures encompassing broader waste streams that help society improve resource recovery and reuse. Future 500 has progressed several processes to drive innovative waste management policies focused on extended producer responsibility (epr) policy, a proven recycling structure implemented in dozens of countries across the globe. What might such a policy mean for the united states and other nations and states? How should governments and industries continue experimenting with the policy to test effectiveness and scale from there to natinal solutions that create unifying approaches rather than a patchwork of more localized policies?
$152,922 spent22% of program spendingPeople/powerFuture 500 faces a future of increasing ecological and economic deficits around the planet. Concurrently, we are amidst a global technological revolution transforming every aspect of human lives, causing significant social change. The agent of this revolution is a new family of technologies - broadband, the internet, microchips, software support, ai, and advanced data measurement and analytics - that is drawing the world together into a single, coexisting whole for the first time. By unleashing the innovative capacity of civil society and corporations to use technology for good, we can potentially reverse these deficits toward the betterment of people, planet and profit.
$144,022 spent20% of program spendingFood/wateras the planet grows more crowded and affluent, protecting the universal human right to safe food and clean, plentiful water is straining the capabilities of our natural resources. This competition for resources is illuminating the interconnectedness of the food, water, and energy systems. Actions taken in one area inherently impact the other two: the agriculture and energy industries are the most significant global consumers of fresh water; transporting and heating water requires enormous amounts of energy; energy resource extraction reduces available land for food production and may contaminate local water sources. More than ever, sustaining our food and water supplies requires integrated solutions that reduce externalities and improve efficiency across sectors and geographies. Toward this end, Future 500 works with various stakeholders to advance systemic solutions at this critical nexus of food, water, and energy. We align stakeholders to explore approaches that leverage the corporate supply chain and political power to drive improved resource quality and quantity.
$155,770 spent22% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $710,770.
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 2019 to 2020, from $697k to $1.1M (+51%).
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 2%. 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 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
Erik Wohlgemuth
CEO/director
Board chair
P K Agarwal
Chairman
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2021 and FY2022 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2021: the base held at 1 funder, grant income fell $100k → $10k.
1 of 3 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 8% 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 FUTURE 500’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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
FUTURE 500 leans on a few funders — its largest provides 84% of grant income and the top three 100%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
92% 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 FUTURE 500.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2021 100% — 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.
Where its funders are
91% of FUTURE 500's grant income comes from California funders.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $10k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state 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 FUTURE 500
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 California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
74% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
99%
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 FUTURE 500: 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 FUTURE 500?
- FUTURE 500 (California) receives grants from 3 organizations whose IRS filings report $119,500 to it, the largest being THE ENERGY FOUNDATION ($100,000). 0 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does FUTURE 500 have?
- IRS filings report 3 organizations giving $119,500 in grants to FUTURE 500.
- Who is the largest funder of FUTURE 500?
- THE ENERGY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $100,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like FUTURE 500 find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. 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 Future 500 →
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 3 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 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing