New Mexico · Nonprofit
NATURAL CURIOSITY INC
NATURAL CURIOSITY INC (New Mexico) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $680,008 to it, the largest being NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION ($191,008). 3 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 68% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.1M
- Funders on record
- 8
- Grants received
- $680k
- Net assets
- $2.1M
What Natural Curiosity Inc does
Mission
To advance conservation through research, experiential outdoor education, and wilderness stewardship. We plan to accomplish this by engaging people with nature and giving them the knowledge, skills, and confidence to do conservation work and recreate in nature.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Outdoor Education: Natural Curiosity provided field-based outdoor education to youth and adults with four distinct programs in 2025. Supported by a New Mexico Outdoor Equity Fund grant, we hosted a free two-week summer day camp at our Animas Campus for 26 local youth in Sierra County, divided into two age groups (10-12 and 13-15), and supported by two student camp interns aged 16-18 who were hired to assist with programming. Campers received meals and all necessary outdoor gear while learning hiking, orienteering, wildlife identification, and outdoor safety, including a field trip to Ladder Ranch to learn about regional conservation projects and instruction on ecological challenges facing the area, including wildfire risk and long-term drought. In partnership with the Western Institute of Lifelong Learning (WILL) at Western New Mexico University, 10 adult participants completed a weekend field course on mountain lion ecology and management at the Hermosa Field Station, including lectures, tracking, and a visit to an active puma kill site. We also hosted Outdoorsy Women Learning Survival Skills (OWLS), a week-long Introduction to Backpacking program led by wilderness educator…
$233,720 spent$295,206 earned by the program46% of program spendingConservation Research: Natural Curiosity conducted field-based wildlife research and conservation partnerships across multiple projects in 2025. Our ongoing Mountain Lion Research Program in the Gila National Forest and surrounding private lands continued. The program also hosted 1 undergraduate summer research student at our Hermosa Field Station, who pursued an independent research question, collected and analyzed data, wrote a scientific report, and presented their findings as a poster at a professional scientific meeting. We continued making upgrades to PhotoGoFer, a proprietary remote camera photo data management and capture software that supports wildlife conservation and management. We were able to provide a working version of the software to undergraduate students at Furman University to use as part of a series of biology labs about wildlife conservation research techniques. Additionally, we provided the PhotoGoFer software and training to several colleagues and students we're collaborating with in South Africa on conservation research projects. In 2025, we continued our multi-year contract with Bat Conservation International to survey and document Penstemon metcalfei…
$14,710 spent$6,075 earned by the program3% of program spendingWilderness Stewardship: In 2025, Natural Curiosity continued work under agreements with the US Forest Service and National Forest Foundation to restore deferred maintenance trails badly damaged by the 2022 Black Fire (>300K acres) and subsequent flooding. These trails, all within the Gila National Forest and Aldo Leopold Wilderness, help to preserve public access to federally held public lands and -when maintained- reduce human impact to the landscape and preserve watershed health alongside safe recreation. The organization facilitated over 96 volunteer hours alongside over 3,126 hours of paid on-the-ground (non-administrative) work and 11 partner trail-work hitches, culminating in improvements on over 17 miles of trail. Throughout the year a total of 42 staff, contractors, students, partners, and volunteers were able contribute to improved trail conditions while building their own Wilderness Stewardship skills. Collaborations with the United States Forest Service, Cottonwood Gulch, Outslope Trail Solutions, and Conservation Corps New Mexico all supported a model of increasing personal development, training, and skill-building for those who worked with Natural Curiosity to improve…
$166,777 spent$165,997 earned by the program33% of program spendingGeneral program expenses not assigned to a specific program
$88,784 spent$279,627 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: $503,991.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2022, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2022, 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.
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: 2025 27%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
64% of NATURAL CURIOSITY INC’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. 0 of the last 2 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
Megan Pitman Perry
CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2022 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 5 funders, grant income rose $5k → $257k.
6 of 8 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 68% 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 NATURAL CURIOSITY INC’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
NATURAL CURIOSITY INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 28% of grant income and the top three 68%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
96% 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 NATURAL CURIOSITY INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2022 100% · 2023 43% — 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.
Where its funders are
68% of NATURAL CURIOSITY INC's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $216k that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from funders outside New Mexico, across 2 states.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $464k arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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
NATURAL CURIOSITY INC runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 1,074 environment nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,074 environment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding NATURAL CURIOSITY INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $250k on record.
- Department of Agriculture$250k
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 NATURAL CURIOSITY 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 New Mexico
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
73% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for NATURAL CURIOSITY 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 NATURAL CURIOSITY INC?
- NATURAL CURIOSITY INC (New Mexico) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $680,008 to it, the largest being NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION ($191,008). 3 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 68% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does NATURAL CURIOSITY INC have?
- IRS filings report 8 organizations giving $680,008 in grants to NATURAL CURIOSITY INC, 3 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of NATURAL CURIOSITY INC?
- NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $191,008 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like NATURAL CURIOSITY INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in New Mexico. 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 Natural Curiosity →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2022–2025), and the filings of 8 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