California · Nonprofit
SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE
SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE (California) receives grants from 281 organizations whose IRS filings report $74,242,053 to it, the largest being FRED MAYTAG FAMILY FOUNDATION ($14,130,027). 158 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $68M
- Funders on record
- 281
- Grants received
- $74M
- Net assets
- $199M
What Save the Redwoods League does
Mission
Save the Redwoods League protects and restores redwood forests and connects people with their peace and beauty so these wonders of the natural world flourish.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Land protection - Save the Redwoods League purchases land to safeguard at-risk redwood ecosystems and the communities they support. Our strategic acquisitions are guided by our new conservation planning tool, which helps us analyze data and identify priority areas where we can best restore damaged forests, conserve old growth and wildlife, and expand equitable access. In 2024, we purchased the 1,624-acre sonoma coast redwoods property, which will help fire-impacted redwood forests recover toward old growth, reconnect wildlife habitat, and offer opportunities to expand the california coastal trail. We also acquired 360 acres adjoining armstrong redwoods state natural reserve. The land will be managed to boost fire resilience, protect old-growth redwoods, and preserve the headwaters of two salmon-bearing creeks. Additionally, we transferred our russian river redwoods property to sonoma county, securing permanent protection for 394 acres of vibrant redwoods and crucial wildlife habitat.
$7,441,969 spentof which $2,359,855 as grants19% of program spendingForest restoration - Save the Redwoods League revitalizes redwood ecosystems throughout california, leveraging scientific expertise to ensure these forests thrive into the future. Redwoods rising, our partnership with california state parks and the national park service, is restoring 70,000 acres of previously logged forest within redwood national and state parks. In 2024, working with our redwood rising partners, we completed 871 acres of forestry treatments to create space for young trees and improve fire resiliency, removed 7 miles of old logging roads, and brought over a mile of streams back to life. On california's north coast, our restoration work has generated $31 million in economic output in del norte and humboldt counties in 2024 alone. In the sierra nevada, through our partnership in the giant sequoia lands coalition, we restored fire-damaged sequoia ecosystems, planting 8,500 seedlings at alder creek and packsaddle groves. We also continued efforts to boost the resilience of these groves against future wildfires through strategic vegetation thinning.additionally, our redwoods rising apprentice program continued in 2024, providing forestry experience and professional…
$29,234,309 spentof which $1,227,508 as grants$12,846,826 earned by the program74% of program spendingCommunity engagement - the league partners with community groups to make redwood park visits possible in ways that reflect each community's needs. In 2024, our redwood rides program provided free transportation for 415 under-resourced youth, and 17 redwood connect grants supported activities such as canoeing, hiking, stewardship projects, and banana slug-spotting. These community-driven efforts ensure that the redwoods are welcoming and accessible to all. We also launched season 4 of our podcast, I'll go if you go, which features voices from across the redwood - ecosystem from firefighters to community organizers - highlighting diverse, community-rooted paths in forest stewardship. Finally, we continued work with the yurok tribe and other local partners at the 'o rew redwoods gateway, which will serve as the southern entrance to redwood national and state parks. With interpretive exhibits, new trails, and a link to the california coastal trail, this gateway invites visitors to experience the redwoods through a lens of indigenous heritage and cultural resilience.
$3,009,847 spentof which $249,508 as grants8% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $39,686,125.
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 2021 to 2022, from $168M to $200M (+19%).
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 3% · 2018 14% · 2019 2% · 2020 10% · 2021 44% · 2022 15% · 2023 18% · 2024 36% · 2025 21%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
67% of SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (87% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 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
Samuel M Hodder
President/CEO
Board chair
Sara Ann Clark
Chair, director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 47 funders to 95 funders, grant income rose $5.6M → $7.9M.
55 of 281 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 42% 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 SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 281 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
SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 19% of grant income, and it takes 6 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 6 funders to its left
53% 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 SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 41% · 2018 50% · 2019 46% · 2020 53% · 2021 19% · 2022 27% · 2023 26% — 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
39% of SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 56% 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
81% of SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $31M arriving through sponsors registered in 22 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
SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 210 environment nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 210 environment nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $51.4M on record.
- Department of the Interior$36.1M
- Department of Agriculture$14.8M
- Department of Commerce$603k
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 SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE
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.
Where the money goes
78% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
96%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 43 states
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Charitable Remainder Trust (4) · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE: 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 SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE?
- SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE (California) receives grants from 281 organizations whose IRS filings report $74,242,053 to it, the largest being FRED MAYTAG FAMILY FOUNDATION ($14,130,027). 158 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE have?
- IRS filings report 281 organizations giving $74,242,053 in grants to SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE, 158 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE?
- FRED MAYTAG FAMILY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $14,130,027 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE 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.
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 281 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing