Illinois · Nonprofit
PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK
PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK (Illinois) receives grants from 28 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,158,184 to it, the largest being UNITED STATES ENERGY FOUNDATION ($1,090,000). 19 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.8M
- Funders on record
- 28
- Grants received
- $5.2M
- Net assets
- $6.6M
What Prairie Rivers Network does
Mission
At Prairie Rivers Network, we protect water, heal land, and inspire change. Using the creative power of science, law, and collective action, we protect and restore our rivers, return healthy soils and diverse wildlife to our lands, and transform how we care for the earth and for each other.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
At Prairie Rivers Network, we protect water, heal land, and inspire change. Protect water - water is life-connecting, sustaining, and inspiring us all. At Prairie Rivers Network we protect water from ravages of pollution and restore the beauty and power of naturally flowing rivers. We hold polluters accountable, advance policies to allow river ecosystems to thrive, and promote practices that keep our waters clean.heal land - land and water form a system on which the entire community of life depends; to care for land is to care for water. Too often, human activity degrades land and water and imperils this community. At Prairie Rivers Network, we advance practices and policies that return health to our soils and increase biodiversity. We work with people to restore the lands along and between our rivers, repair the earth that provides our food, and ensure that animals have the habitat needed to thrive. Inspire change - Prairie Rivers Network is part of an interconnected whole. Our community includes all parts of the earth: soil, water, people, plants, and animals. At Prairie Rivers Network, we elevate and uphold the cultural values and understandings needed for all life to flourish.…
$1,406,736 spent$7,758 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,406,736.
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 2024 to 2025, from $5.8M to $7.0M (+20%).
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 10%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
98% of PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (88% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 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
Margaret Bruns
Executive director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 14 funders, grant income rose $98k → $883k.
10 of 28 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 21% 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: $35k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Illinois Environmental Council Education). These are real filings, and they are not money PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK raised.
From the IRS filings of PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 27 of 28 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
PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 21% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
54% 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 PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 77% · 2018 52% · 2019 39% · 2020 32% · 2021 30% · 2022 26% · 2023 25% — 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
64% of PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 68% 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
PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK draws 76% of its grant income from funders outside Illinois, across 9 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.1M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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
PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK 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 PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $97k on record.
- Department of Agriculture$97k
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 PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK
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 Illinois
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
98%
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 PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK: 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 PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK?
- PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK (Illinois) receives grants from 28 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,158,184 to it, the largest being UNITED STATES ENERGY FOUNDATION ($1,090,000). 19 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK have?
- IRS filings report 28 organizations giving $5,158,184 in grants to PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK, 19 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK?
- UNITED STATES ENERGY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,090,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like PRAIRIE RIVERS NETWORK find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Illinois. 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 Prairie Rivers Network →
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 28 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