California · Nonprofit
SEMPERVIRENS FUND
SEMPERVIRENS FUND (California) receives grants from 120 organizations whose IRS filings report $23,019,322 to it, the largest being GORDON E AND BETTY I MOORE FOUNDATION ($4,994,950). 70 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $13M
- Funders on record
- 120
- Grants received
- $23M
- Net assets
- $44M
What Sempervirens Fund does
Mission
To ensure coast redwood forests in the santa cruz mountains thrive for generations to come. Since 1900, sempervirens has protected more than 36,000 acres. Learn more about our mission, vision, and strategic plan through 2030 at: sempervirens.org/redwoods-forward.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Land stewardship Sempervirens Fund owns directly or through conservation easement more than 12,000 acres of land. Permanently protecting redwood forests ensures that the properties where redwoods thrive are set aside to keep forests intact and preserved for generations to come. We work across santa cruz mountain landscapes, and in collaboration with neighbors and regional partners, to safeguard the health of trees, habitats, waterways, and wildlife. Please continue to schedule o for further description of this work. For each property in our care, we generate a stewardship plan which gives us, our partners, and our neighbors clarity and guidance about the resources we are preserving and the natural features we are restoring. Active land management activities include wildfire resiliency projects such as establishing shaded fuel breaks and prescribed burning programs; forest health projects, including removing debris, maintaining trails, clearing invasive plants, and planting new seedlings; and research projects such as wildlife monitoring, endangered species reclamation, traditional indigenous cultural surveys, and much more. After significant disturbances, such as wildfire or…
$2,969,358 spent$49,335 earned by the program50% of program spendingEducation and outreach Sempervirens Fund regularly communicates general information about its work, the vital role redwoods play in a healthy, thriving, and rich regional ecosystem, and opportunities to volunteer or find recreation in the santa cruz mountains. Sempervirens Fund's community is invited to learn, volunteer, take action, and donate to our work through digital, print, and in-person communications and events, including outreach activities such as webinars, community events, and hiking and volunteer opportunities. Visit sempervirens.org to learn more please continue to schedule o for further description of this work. The focus of Sempervirens Fund's outreach is to introduce new groups of people about its work; introduce them to outdoor recreation opportunities; learn together about the marvels of redwoods, and cultivate their interest to become new stewards of the santa cruz mountains habitat. At Sempervirens Fund, we believe that celebrating diversity, fostering inclusion, advancing equity, and realizing justice is not only essential to our mission, but vital to our humanity, as people working for and serving on the board for Sempervirens Fund and as part of a community…
$1,601,085 spent27% of program spendingProtecting land through acquisition and transfer in fiscal year 2025, sempervirens acquired one land parcel: ano nuevo vista, 41 acres between butano and big basin redwoods state park. The property includes a mosaic of habitat types from redwood forest to quickly disappearing maritime chaparral.this diversity of habitat types supports many plants and wildlife within its borders and throughout the watershed. To learn more, visit: sempervirens.org/protect/redwood-forests/ano-nuevo-vista/ please continue to schedule o for further description of this work. Acre by protected acre, and with your support, we purchase, restore, and safeguard redwood forests in the santa cruz mountains, ensuring they will never be developed, degraded, or destroyed. Much of the remaining redwood forests to protect is privately owned. We work with willing sellers to purchase land at fair market value, often transferring the land to california state parks or other local public agencies. When transfering land to california state parks we may receive payment for the land which is below its book value, which results in a write-off for the impaired book value of that land. Sempervirens owns significant…
$1,221,270 spent21% of program spendingGiving in honor or memory Sempervirens Fund provides the opportunity for its supporters to dedicate a tree or grove located within Sempervirens Fund protected lands in the santa cruz mountains, including partner-owned lands such as california state parks. Making a lasting tribute or celebrating a special occasion and make an important contribution to protecting the redwoods forest at the same time. Sempervirens Fund has entered into an agreement with california state parks whereby sempervirens is permitted to offer the naming rights to the trees and groves of trees. We take care of all the details and can send a gift card to the person you are honoring.
$149,703 spent3% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $5,941,416.
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 2020 to 2021, from $33M to $40M (+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: 2021 2% · 2022 1% · 2023 31% · 2025 0%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
94% of SEMPERVIRENS FUND’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (87% 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
Sara Barth
Executive director
Board chair
Evan Siegel
Audit chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 30 funders to 42 funders, grant income rose $1.6M → $5.0M.
29 of 120 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 30% 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 SEMPERVIRENS FUND’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 120 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
SEMPERVIRENS FUND has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 22% 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
49% 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 SEMPERVIRENS FUND.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 42% · 2018 73% · 2019 24% · 2020 37% · 2021 54% · 2022 28% · 2023 40% — broadly stable.
“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
49% of SEMPERVIRENS FUND's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 58% 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
88% of SEMPERVIRENS FUND's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $7.0M arriving through sponsors registered in 15 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
SEMPERVIRENS FUND holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 210 environment nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 210 environment nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Organizations like SEMPERVIRENS FUND
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
67% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
90%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 35 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for SEMPERVIRENS FUND: 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 SEMPERVIRENS FUND?
- SEMPERVIRENS FUND (California) receives grants from 120 organizations whose IRS filings report $23,019,322 to it, the largest being GORDON E AND BETTY I MOORE FOUNDATION ($4,994,950). 70 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SEMPERVIRENS FUND have?
- IRS filings report 120 organizations giving $23,019,322 in grants to SEMPERVIRENS FUND, 70 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SEMPERVIRENS FUND?
- GORDON E AND BETTY I MOORE FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $4,994,950 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SEMPERVIRENS FUND 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 120 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