Kansas · Nonprofit
The Land Institute
The Land Institute (Kansas) receives grants from 127 organizations whose IRS filings report $30,002,428 to it, the largest being NOVO FOUNDATION ($10,500,000). 80 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $10M
- Funders on record
- 127
- Grants received
- $30M
- Net assets
- $22M
What The Land Institute does
Mission
When people, land, and community are as one, all three members prosper; when they relate not as members but as competing interests, all three are exploited. By consulting nature as the source and measure of that membership, The Land Institute seeks to develop an agriculture that will save soil from being lost or poisoned, while promoting a community life at once prosperous and enduring.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
The Land Institute is developing a new farming system, natural systems agriculture (nsa), including developing new perennial grain crops and diverse cropping systems that provide their own fertility, weed control and water management and hold the soil year-round. Nsa responds to the urgent need to stop soil erosion and mitigate and adapt to climate change worldwide.
$5,987,432 spentof which $354,684 as grants$476,283 earned by the program80% of program spendingEducation and public policy - work that focuses on encouraging others to become more active in work that promotes ecology and agriculture. Includes publications, communications, educational convening, events, and research into the education, public policy, and social transformations required for a just society that thrives within ecological limits
$1,487,951 spent20% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $7,475,383.
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.
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 $18M to $22M (+22%).
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 6% · 2024 8% · 2025 10%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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.
Board chair
Ruth Anne Rench-Hodson
Director/ chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 24 funders to 56 funders, grant income rose $323k → $4.1M.
28 of 127 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 41% 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 The Land Institute’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 127 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
The Land Institute has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 35% 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
48% 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 The Land Institute.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 33% · 2018 84% · 2019 47% · 2020 38% · 2021 33% · 2022 30% · 2023 37% — growing more concentrated.
“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
45% of The Land Institute's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 63% 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
The Land Institute draws 98% of its grant income from funders outside Kansas, across 32 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $12M arriving through sponsors registered in 19 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.
Government funding The Land Institute receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $4.2M on record.
- Department of Commerce$3.2M
- Department of Agriculture$1.0M
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 The Land Institute
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 Kansas
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
77%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for The Land Institute: 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 The Land Institute?
- The Land Institute (Kansas) receives grants from 127 organizations whose IRS filings report $30,002,428 to it, the largest being NOVO FOUNDATION ($10,500,000). 80 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does The Land Institute have?
- IRS filings report 127 organizations giving $30,002,428 in grants to The Land Institute, 80 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The Land Institute?
- NOVO FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $10,500,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The Land Institute find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Kansas. 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 127 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