California · Nonprofit
Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum
Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum (California) receives grants from 6 organizations whose IRS filings report $87,079 to it, the largest being PAYPAL CHARITABLE GIVING FUND ($40,029). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 100% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $141k
- Funders on record
- 6
- Grants received
- $87k
- Net assets
- $323k
What Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum does
Mission
The mission of the Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum is to inspire the next generation though practical environmental education and conservation.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ.
Program
In 1989, Hugh Codding donated the entire Codding Museum inventory to Petaluma High School instructor Ron Head to create an innovative educational program. Ron's dream was to give high school students career and leadership skills through active participation in an environmental education program. The Petaluma Wildlife Museum facility was built in 1940 as a school bus garage. When the Museum's collection outgrew the confines of Ron's classroom portable, the Codding family helped purchase a new bus garage, freeing the old one to be used as a world-class 9000 square foot wildlife museum. Over the next few years, hundreds of volunteers from every corner of the community donated time and money to construct various dioramas representing habitats from across the world. They also built displays to house mineral collections, poaching artifacts, and the large live animal collection. Today, the Museum houses over 50 species of fish, insects, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. Thousands of people visit the Museum every year where dozens of high school students provide tours and animal education.A High School ProgramThe Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum is founded on an innovative…
$92,969 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $92,969.
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 2022 to 2023, from $269k to $336k (+25%).
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.
36% of Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (64% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
Who funds it, year by year
2019 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 2 funders, grant income fell $20k → $7k.
5 of 6 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 100% 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 Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 5 of 6 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
Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum leans on a few funders — its largest provides 46% of grant income and the top three 92%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
100% 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 Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2019 100% · 2020 100% · 2021 99% · 2022 100% · 2023 97% — 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
100% of Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum'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. Too little is directly attributable to place on a map.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $87k arriving through sponsors registered in 5 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
Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 17,936 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 17,936 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum
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.
Public support
100%
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 Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum: 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 Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum?
- Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum (California) receives grants from 6 organizations whose IRS filings report $87,079 to it, the largest being PAYPAL CHARITABLE GIVING FUND ($40,029). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 100% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum have?
- IRS filings report 6 organizations giving $87,079 in grants to Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum, 2 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum?
- PAYPAL CHARITABLE GIVING FUND is the largest funder on record, with $40,029 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum 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 Petaluma Wildlife and Natural Science Museum →
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 6 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