Florida · Nonprofit
Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project
Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project (Florida) receives grants from 36 organizations whose IRS filings report $926,736 to it, the largest being RAYMOND JAMES CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT FUND ($175,500). 17 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 79% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $558k
- Funders on record
- 36
- Grants received
- $927k
- Net assets
- $224k
What Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project does
Mission
For Education, Safety, Protection, Recovery, and Prevention From Cruelty for All Cetaceans Especially Dolphins
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
JAPANDuring the annual six-month dolphin drive season in Taiji, wild dolphins are driven into the cove. Some are live-captured for the global dolphin entertainment industry, while others are cruelly slaughtered and sold as meat.Since 2003, Dolphin Project has been the only independent body to act as an observer monitoring the hunts in Taiji. While we are not permitted to intervene, our role is to document the hunts, track captures and slaughters, and broadcast the events in real time to the world. With each new viewer, we are shifting public perception about captivity. We also continue to support Japanese-based activists who have maintained pressure on authorities to end the hunts.Thanks to a favorable ruling on May 17 from Japans High Court, after a nearly three-year-long legal battle against Taijithe site of the brutal dolphin slaughters and captures (chronicled in the Academy Awardwinning documentary The Cove)we obtained thousands of pages of documentation pertaining to the sales, exportation, and inventories of live dolphins. For decades there has been a concentrated effort to conceal not only the drive hunts, but also information on where live-captured dolphins were sent, how…
$450,797 spent100% of program spendingINDONESIAUmah Lumba Rehabilitation, Release, and Retirement CenterDolphin Project, in conjunction with our local partnersthe Central Jakarta Forestry Department and Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN)built the Umah Lumba Rehabilitation, Release, and Retirement Center in Banyuwedang Bay, West Bali, the first-ever permanent dolphin rehabilitation, release, and retirement facility for formerly performing dolphins.In July of this year, just over 10 months since three confiscated dolphins were offered their freedom, Rambo, the last remaining dolphin residing near the release site, chose to depart. In the weeks prior to his departure, he was seen swimming with a pod of wild bottlenose dolphins. All signs point to his having joined a pod and living the life he was meant to lead.(Last September, the gate at the Umah Lumba Rehabilitation, Release, and Retirement Center was opened, offering freedom to Rocky, Rambo, and Johnnythe three dolphins who had been in our care for nearly three years. It was a soft release, meaning they could choose to leave the area or stay near the center. Rambo chose to stay.)While our main focus at Umah Lumba is dolphin rescue and rehabilitation, Dolphin Project is…
EUROPEThe campaign to support local activists in Europe is ongoing. We are working with a German NGO to make Germany dolphinarium-free. About 30 years ago we began protesting the Hagenbeck Zoo, when Germany had roughly a dozen captive dolphin facilities. Today, only two remain: one in Duisburg and one in Nuremberg. We intend to shut them down.Victory in Belgium! Dolphin Project first began protesting dolphin captivity in Antwerp in 1999, alongside Belgian dolphin freedom activists. When the dolphin theater at the Antwerp Zoo closed later that year, Boudewijn Seapark became the countrys last remaining dolphinarium. On November 17, Flemish Minister for Animal Welfare Ben Weyts announced that Flanders will enforce a permanent ban on dolphinariums. Boudewijn Seapark, where seven bottlenose dolphins remain confined in a concrete theater, must close no later than 2037. This victory shows that protest works.Helene OBarry continues to monitor the orcas and dolphins at Loro Parque in Tenerife, Spain. Dolphin Project strongly urges TUI to put ethics over profits and stop selling tickets to Loro Parque and other facilities that exploit orcas and dolphins as tourist attractions. As the worlds…
SOLOMON ISLANDSDolphin Project is actively developing community programs in conjunction with an agreement to end dolphin exploitation. By offering economic and social benefits that reduce reliance on dolphin-derived income, we aim to stop dolphin hunting and trafficking while improving access to social services. We also monitor and record the annual dolphin drive hunts and maintain a database of the number of dolphins killed each year.UNITED STATESNO MORE DOLPHINS AT DISNEY!After collaborating with local activist Izzy Megilley on our Save the Disney Dolphins campaign and collecting nearly 30,000 signatures urging Disney to retire the dolphins at EPCOT, the park announced in October that all live dolphins will be removed. Disney cited a commitment to prioritizing the well-being of the animals. While we advocated for a proper retirement for the dolphins, we are pleased that Disney is now a dolphin-free attraction.MIAMI SEAQUARIUMFor decades, Dolphin Project has vigorously campaigned against the Miami Seaquariums use of captive dolphins. Since August 2023, when the worlds most famous captive orca, Lolita, died, over 120 dolphins have died at the facility. Between 2021 and 2023, three…
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $450,797.
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 $341k to $178k (−48%).
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.
98% of Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (86% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 15 funders, grant income rose $25k → $155k.
9 of 36 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 79% 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 Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 36 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
Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 19% 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
82% 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 Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 79% · 2018 48% · 2019 50% · 2020 28% · 2021 18% · 2022 36% · 2023 32% — 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
42% of Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 47% 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
79% of Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project'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 $199k that is directly attributable, 89% of it comes from funders outside Florida, across 17 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $728k 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
Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 6,435 animals nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 6,435 animals nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Government funding Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $217 on record.
- REFUNDS - GENERAL $217
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 Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project
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 Florida
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
90% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
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 Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project: 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 Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project?
- Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project (Florida) receives grants from 36 organizations whose IRS filings report $926,736 to it, the largest being RAYMOND JAMES CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT FUND ($175,500). 17 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 79% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project have?
- IRS filings report 36 organizations giving $926,736 in grants to Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project, 17 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project?
- RAYMOND JAMES CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $175,500 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Florida. 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 Ric OBarrys Dolphin Project →
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 36 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