Maryland · Nonprofit
SHORERIVERS INC
SHORERIVERS INC (Maryland) receives grants from 74 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,787,117 to it, the largest being NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION ($2,288,054). 54 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $5.4M
- Funders on record
- 74
- Grants received
- $7.8M
- Net assets
- $3.6M
What Shorerivers Inc does
Mission
Shorerivers protects and restores eastern shore waterways through science-based advocacy, restoration and education.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Regulatory enforcement and pollution reducing projects shorerivers works to improve water quality through legal and policy advocacy. The riverkeepers support laws that protect our waterways. They work with state and local governments to maximize the environmental benefit of the tmdl constraints, and the water implementation plans that each jurisdiction must employ. They patrol rivers and help state officials enforce conservation regulations. Shorerivers staff work with members of the agricultural community designing, funding, and implementing pollution reduction and restoration projects.
$8,110,720 spent84% of program spendingEducation and outreach shorerivers publishes multuple printed and electronic newsletters each year, sponsors an environmental outreach and fundraiser each fall, hosts a summer solstice outreach and fundraising event, hosts a ride for clean rivers bike ride to bring awareness to clean water issues, publishes periodic newspaper articles on river protection issues, hosts an annual youth environmental action summit. Promotes an oyster restoration program, engages in an agricultural outreach program with farmers and sends staff to public forums, community groups, etc. To speak on river stewardship. Shorerivers conducts an environmental education program in public schools in talbot, dorchester, kent, and queen annes counties.
$1,050,558 spent11% of program spendingWater quality monitoring and testing seasonally, shorerivers monitors and tests water quality at over 67 sites multiple times each month in eastern bay, the bayside creeks, and on the choptank, miles, wye, chester and sassafras rivers and their tributaries. The riverkeepers test for water clarity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and algal concentrations. The organization also test 48 sites weekly for bacteria levels and provides training, administrative, data analysis and other support for the water quality program. The organization issues a state of the rivers report card annually. The four riverkeepers patrol their watersheds by boat.
$507,549 spent5% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $9,668,827.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2018, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2018, 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 2019 to 2020, from $1.6M to $2.6M (+61%).
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: 2018 61% · 2019 69% · 2020 71% · 2021 71% · 2022 57% · 2023 51% · 2024 63%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
96% of SHORERIVERS INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (88% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 7 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
Isabel Hardesty
Executive director
Board chair
Marian Fry
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 6 funders to 41 funders, grant income rose $139k → $1.2M.
12 of 74 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 12% 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: $274k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Chester River Association Inc). These are real filings, and they are not money SHORERIVERS INC raised.
From the IRS filings of SHORERIVERS INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 74 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
SHORERIVERS INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 29% of grant income and the top three 59%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
51% 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 SHORERIVERS INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 35% · 2018 31% · 2019 48% · 2020 49% · 2021 64% · 2022 36% · 2023 28% — 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 SHORERIVERS INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 73% 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
SHORERIVERS INC draws 51% of its grant income from funders outside Maryland, across 18 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $904k arriving through sponsors registered in 10 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
SHORERIVERS INC's funding base is broadening — from 6 funders to 41 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,187 environment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding SHORERIVERS INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $9.0M on record — $245k federal, $8.8M state.
- Department of Commerce$220k
- Department of the Interior$25k
- MD$8.6M
- DE$192k
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 SHORERIVERS INC
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 Maryland
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
88% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
93%
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 SHORERIVERS 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. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds SHORERIVERS INC?
- SHORERIVERS INC (Maryland) receives grants from 74 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,787,117 to it, the largest being NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION ($2,288,054). 54 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SHORERIVERS INC have?
- IRS filings report 74 organizations giving $7,787,117 in grants to SHORERIVERS INC, 54 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SHORERIVERS INC?
- NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $2,288,054 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SHORERIVERS INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Maryland. 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 Shorerivers →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2018–2024), and the filings of 74 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