California · Nonprofit
VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE
VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE (California) receives grants from 32 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,348,043 to it, the largest being NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION ($263,366). 22 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $743k
- Funders on record
- 32
- Grants received
- $1.3M
- Net assets
- $118k
What Ventana Wilderness Alliance does
Mission
The mission of the Ventana Wilderness Alliance is to protect, preserve, and restore the wilderness qualities and biodiversity of the public lands within California's northern Santa Lucia Mountains and Big Sur coast.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Youth: vwa's youth in wilderness educational programs are desperately needed by central coast youth. Monterey county ranks at or near the top statewide in youth and teen violenceand remains a county of concern for juvenile delinquency rates. Young people in urban areas often have minimal resources or opportunities for a healthy lifestyle. In 2024, the vwa's youth in wilderness program continued to fill this need and inspire future wilderness stewards by providing carefully planned, professionally-led backpacking adventures to 322 young people in the region. Leadership, gear, and meals for these experiences was provided at no cost to participants and our education partners.
$177,446 spent$220,747 earned by the program36% of program spendingTrail program: maintaining public access to the 300-mile network of trails in the rugged ventana region has always been a significant challenge. Landscape level wildfires in recent years include the 2016 soberanes fire and the 2020 dolan fire. Each of these conflagrations torched over 100,000 acres of the ventana wildeness and damaged over 100 miles of trails. Post-fire winter storms decimate roads leading totrailheads limiting the ability of volunteer and contract crews to restore trails equally damaged by erosion, debris flows, and deadfalls. Despite these major setbacks, the vwa trail program continued to contribute thousands of volunteer crew hours in 2024 to maintain and reconstruct prioritized sections of trail in the ventana and silver peak wilderness areas.
$144,126 spent$156,301 earned by the program30% of program spendingAdvocacy: vwa advocates for wilderness values and the ecologically sensitive management of public lands in the ventana and big sur regions. Policy experts analyze and respond to the us forest service schedule of proposed actions (sopa) by attending planning and scoping meetings, providing comments, and encouraging participation by the public and other stakeholders. The vwa's advocacy programs included efforts to expand wilderness and wild and scenic river designations, monitoring grazing allotments to ensure regulatory compliance, promoting approprate fuels and wildfire management strategies, identifying and encouraging the mitigation of wilderness incursions, educating the public about wilderness, and advocating for the restoration of federal funding to critical public land agencies.
$139,717 spent$200,331 earned by the program29% of program spendingVolunteer wilderness ranger program: since the federal government does not prioritize or properly fund the us forest service to manage wildnerness, vwa steps to the challenge with a program that puts volunteer wilderness rangers in the back country. Volunteers patrol trails and camps and perform campsite maintenance while imparting fire safety and leave no trace information to the visiting public. In 2024 rangers donated thousands of service hours by cleaning camp sites, removing trash, and imparting leave no trace principles through direct contact with visitors. Each year, volunteer wilderness rangers make an in-kind contribution to public lands worth tens of thousands of dollars to the community.
$25,115 spent$58,140 earned by the program5% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $486,404.
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 2021 to 2022, from $368k to $158k (−57%).
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: 2022 22% · 2023 10% · 2024 4%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
100% of VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (88% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 7 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
Mike Chamberlain
Executive director
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 5 funders to 11 funders, grant income fell $194k → $124k.
10 of 32 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 22% 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 VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 32 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
VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 20% of grant income, and it takes 6 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 6 funders to its left
55% 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 VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 67% · 2018 27% · 2019 41% · 2020 35% · 2021 33% · 2022 14% · 2023 24% — 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
33% of VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 69% 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
55% of VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $296k 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
VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE's revenue grew 78% between 2017 and 2024.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 4,264 environment nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Government funding VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $459k on record.
- Department of Agriculture$409k
- Environmental Protection Agency$50k
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 VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE
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
65% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
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 VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE: 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 VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE?
- VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE (California) receives grants from 32 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,348,043 to it, the largest being NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION ($263,366). 22 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE have?
- IRS filings report 32 organizations giving $1,348,043 in grants to VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE, 22 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE?
- NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $263,366 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like VENTANA WILDERNESS ALLIANCE 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 Ventana Wilderness Alliance →
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 32 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