Skip to content

California · Nonprofit

Sonoma Botanical Garden

Sonoma Botanical Garden (California) receives grants from 20 organizations whose IRS filings report $707,860 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($183,975). 10 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 69% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.

Revenue FY2023
$1.7M
Funders on record
20
Grants received
$708k
Net assets
$16M
10/20 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 7%
01What it does

What Sonoma Botanical Garden does

Program

  1. Operation of a botanical garden for the purpose of advancing the study, appreciation, and understanding of the beauty and value of Asian and California native plants and to promote their conservation in natural habitats and gardens.

    $1,457,631 spent

The program described on its FY2023 Form 990-PF.

02The organization over time

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.

100 = 20172017 Revenue 100 ($2.0M) Expenses 100 ($1.3M) Net assets 100 ($18M)2018 Revenue 15 ($302k) Expenses 107 ($1.4M) Net assets 94 ($17M)2019 Revenue 59 ($1.2M) Expenses 131 ($1.7M) Net assets 92 ($17M)2020 Revenue 30 ($604k) Expenses 128 ($1.6M) Net assets 86 ($16M)2021 Revenue 89 ($1.8M) Expenses 123 ($1.5M) Net assets 87 ($16M)2022 Revenue 70 ($1.4M) Expenses 129 ($1.6M) Net assets 86 ($16M)2023 Revenue 86 ($1.7M) Expenses 140 ($1.8M) Net assets 86 ($16M)
2017201820192020202120222023
Revenue (86)Expenses (140)Net assets (86)

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 $18M to $17M (−5%).

$18M
$18M
$18M
$17M
$17M
$17M
$17M
2017201820192020202120222023
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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

Scot Medbury

Prev Exec Dir

As listed on its FY2023 Form 990-PF.

2017201820192020202120222023
Listed13111313211819
Joined·+2+3+1+11+0+2
No longer listed·411331
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 8 funders, grant income rose $9k → $124k.

9 of 20 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 69% 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 Sonoma Botanical Garden’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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

Sonoma Botanical Garden has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 26% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left

69% 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 Sonoma Botanical Garden.

26%
largest funder
55%
top three
~7
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 56% · 2018 95% · 2019 69% · 2020 46% · 2021 50% · 2022 37% · 2023 33% — 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

10% of Sonoma Botanical Garden's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 50% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y+3y+4y+5y

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

69% of Sonoma Botanical Garden'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 $220k that is directly attributable, 52% of it comes from California funders.

MT
MN
IL
CA
NM
FL

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
California out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $488k arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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.

04Its place in the field

Organizations like Sonoma Botanical Garden

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

05Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Sonoma Botanical Garden: 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.

A paid feature, included from the $75 plan up. Sign in to download.

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 Sonoma Botanical Garden?
Sonoma Botanical Garden (California) receives grants from 20 organizations whose IRS filings report $707,860 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($183,975). 10 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 69% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
How many funders does Sonoma Botanical Garden have?
IRS filings report 20 organizations giving $707,860 in grants to Sonoma Botanical Garden, 10 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of Sonoma Botanical Garden?
DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC is the largest funder on record, with $183,975 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like Sonoma Botanical Garden 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.

Play a game about who funds Sonoma Botanical Garden →

These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2023 (financials across 2017–2023), and the filings of 20 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