Massachusetts · Nonprofit
THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT
THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT (Massachusetts) receives grants from 43 organizations whose IRS filings report $17,026,259 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($12,235,785). 23 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 76% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $8.0M
- Funders on record
- 43
- Grants received
- $17M
- Net assets
- $47M
What The Walden Woods Project does
Mission
Preserve land in ecologically important areas.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Conservation & land managementThe Walden Woods Project preserves and protects walden woods and thoreau country in recognition of their worldwide literary, historical, and environmental significance and their capacity to motivate others to protect the global environment and the ecologically/historically significant areas that exist in their own communities.The Walden Woods Project owns and stewards nearly 200 acres of land that provides an important service to the public as a highly sought-after resource for passive recreation and education. The majority of our land is open to the public year-round, and our interpretive trails are used extensively by the general public and a wide variety of organized groups, including school groups, elder services groups, and tourists. Management activities include maintenance of existing trails, trail design, interpretation and construction, maintenance of trail head parking facilities, and ecological improvements intended to benefit wildlife and the natural value of our land.the project's land management programs support collaboration between a wide variety of civic and environmental groups.The Walden Woods Project manages conservation…
$1,334,229 spent61% of program spendingEducation:the education programs of The Walden Woods Project serve an audience of students, educators, and life-long learners around the globe. Our signature programs include guided tours for groups visiting walden woods; the global live deliberately essay contest for youth ages 14-19; approaching walden, a week-long summer professional development program for teachers; other professional development workshops throughout the year; virtual group visits, and the stewardship lecture series. All of our programs are inspired by the writings and philosophies of henry david thoreau and ask people to explore their own sense of place--their connection to their own community and other places in the world--and to develop an environmental ethic. As thoreau himself is a highly interdisciplinary subject, we address the topics of transcendentalism, social reform, writing, natural history and 19-century history in our programs. As thoreau himself is a highly interdisciplinary subject, we address the topics of transcendentalism, environmental protection (e.g., climate change, biodiversity, conservation),social reform, writing, natural history and 19-century history in our programs.
$404,631 spentof which $1,000 as grants18% of program spendingResearch and library:The Walden Woods Project library is owned and managed by The Walden Woods Project and is located at the wwp's campus in lincoln, massachusetts. The library houses the most comprehensive research collection by and about henry david thoreau, as well as other transcendentalists, including ralph waldo emerson and margaret fuller, and is the repository for the collections of the thoreau society, the ralph waldo emerson society, and the margaret fuller society. In 2023 The Walden Woods Project revised its loan agreement with the thoreau society to become the permanent repository for its collections. Staffed by a full-time curator, the library is the premiere resource on a global basis for research and scholarship on thoreau and his contemporaries. The library worked with six volunteers this year who have an interest in the history and literature of thoreau's time.every year brings new people with varying interests to The Walden Woods Project library, whether in-person or virtually. Translators from around the world have worked with the curator to provide accurate and representative translations. Our virtual classroom sessions bring our curator into schools around…
$453,072 spent21% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,191,932.
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 2023 to 2024, from $39M to $47M (+21%).
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: 2020 8% · 2021 3% · 2022 11% · 2023 1% · 2024 0%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
95% of THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (63% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 8 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
Kathleen Anderson
Secretary/exec. Director
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 19 funders to 18 funders, grant income rose $873k → $5.9M.
10 of 43 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 76% 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 WALDEN WOODS PROJECT’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 43 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 WALDEN WOODS PROJECT leans on a few funders — its largest provides 72% of grant income and the top three 81%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
81% 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 WALDEN WOODS PROJECT.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 29% · 2018 49% · 2019 26% · 2020 34% · 2021 36% · 2022 27% · 2023 91% — 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
36% of THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 53% 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
76% of THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT'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 $4.1M that is directly attributable, 68% of it comes from funders outside Massachusetts, across 13 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $13M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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
THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 5,127 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 5,127 arts & culture nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $577k on record.
- (NN) INFRASTRUCTURE:$500k
- (PP) STATE AID/POL SUB$77k
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 WALDEN WOODS PROJECT
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 Massachusetts
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
80% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
42%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 11 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT: 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 WALDEN WOODS PROJECT?
- THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT (Massachusetts) receives grants from 43 organizations whose IRS filings report $17,026,259 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($12,235,785). 23 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 76% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT have?
- IRS filings report 43 organizations giving $17,026,259 in grants to THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT, 23 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $12,235,785 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Massachusetts. 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 FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 43 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