Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
Resources for the Future Inc
Resources for the Future Inc (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 91 organizations whose IRS filings report $41,475,903 to it, the largest being Alfred P Sloan Foundation ($4,917,968). 54 of them have funded it in more than one year. Resources for the Future Inc administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
Hosts funds for others
Resources for the Future Inc administers funds on behalf of other donors. The grants recorded as coming in are contributions into those funds, so they count custody rather than support for a programResources for the Future Inc runs itself. This page therefore states the flows and does not draw the comparisons it would draw for an operating charity: concentration, funder retention, grant dependency and the peer field are all left out, because each of them would read a vehicle as if it were a program.
Paid out
$10k
Recipients
1
Contributions on record
$42M
Donors on record
92
Payments out are 0.00x the contributions on record, so the balance accumulates rather than passing straight through.
Three funders worth looking at
Grantmakers with no record of funding this organization, ranked by how strongly the co-funder graph and the mission embeddings agree. The evidence is in section 03.
- Freedom Together Foundationshared funders
- Sea Change Foundationportfolio match
- Food & Water Watchportfolio match
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.
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: 2017 22% · 2018 21% · 2019 22% · 2020 15% · 2021 14% · 2022 12% · 2023 11% · 2024 8%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 7 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 18 funders to 37 funders, grant income rose $3.0M → $5.0M.
27 of 91 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 25% 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 Resources for the Future Inc’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 91 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.
Where its funders are
Resources for the Future Inc draws 98% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 21 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $10M arriving through sponsors registered in 13 statesis 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.
Funders to approach
Grantmakers that don’t fund you yet, surfaced two ways: they back organizations that share your funders, or their grantees resemble your mission. The ones both signals agree on come first. Your 91 funders put you under-funded among the 400 organizations that share them.
- Freedom Together Foundationshared fundersNY · backs 141 organizations that share your funders
- Sea Change Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Food & Water Watchportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Hampshire Foundation Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Aristotelian Foundation Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Paul and June Rossetti Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Ordinary People Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Climate Cousins Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Sobrato Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environmentportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Climate Imperative Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Rf Catalytic Capital Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
From the co-funder graph (funders backing at least two comparable organizations, shrunk for grantee count, donor-advised and mega-funds excluded) and the universe embeddings. A research starting point; overlap is association, not a guarantee of fit.
Government funding Resources for the Future Inc receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $158k on record.
- VT$120k
- OR$29k
- MA$9k
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.
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
76%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 3 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Resources for the Future 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. How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Resources for the Future Inc?
- Resources for the Future Inc (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 91 organizations whose IRS filings report $41,475,903 to it, the largest being Alfred P Sloan Foundation ($4,917,968). 54 of them have funded it in more than one year. Resources for the Future Inc administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
- How many funders does Resources for the Future Inc have?
- IRS filings report 91 organizations giving $41,475,903 in grants to Resources for the Future Inc, 54 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Resources for the Future Inc?
- Alfred P Sloan Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $4,917,968 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Resources for the Future Inc find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Washington, D.C.. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
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 91funders 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 August 27, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing