Montana · Nonprofit
YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER
YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER (Montana) receives grants from 5 organizations whose IRS filings report $315,215 to it, the largest being PARK COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($139,215). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $117k
- Funders on record
- 5
- Grants received
- $315k
- Net assets
- $0
What Yellowstone Ecological Research Center does
Mission
The mission of the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center (yerc) is to empower communities and individuals with data-driven science and technology to activate land, water, and wildlife stewardship across the greater yellowstone ecosystem and beyond. Yerc envisions a world where our communities are empowered to think like an ecosystem, where the health of our natural world can be diagnosed with robust and accessible scientific data, monitored through innovative technological solutions, and addressed through an inclusive community of stakeholders with an informed awareness and the ability to adapt to rapid environmental change.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
Since 1993, yerc has conducted research in and around yellowstone national park on an ecologically diverse set of projects. One pillar of the research being conducted is to collect long-term datasets that capture real trends better than the average research project that lasts just two field seasons. A second is to analyze that data at appropriate spacial scales and at different levels of the biological organization -from genes to regional ecosystems. A third is in collaborating with agencies, universities, and other private organizations so that our work is relevant, accessible, and put to good use solving real world problems. Finally, we are translating our science into adaptive decision-making for the health of ecosystems. Our long-term research and community science monitoring programs - rivernet, landnet, and wildnet and yellowstonenet - provide data streams that fuel an internet platform that solves real world problems. Rivernet is a community science water quality and quantity monitoring program to improve the resolution of data. Landnet is a community based cooperative for diagnostics and prognosis monitoring for agro-ecosystem health. It will provide data on soil carbon…
$52,886 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $52,886.
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 2023 to 2024, from $34k to $0 (−100%).
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: 2017 20% · 2020 33% · 2021 7%. 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 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2019 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 2 funders, grant income rose $25k → $69k.
1 of 5 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 44% 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 YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER’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
YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER leans on a few funders — its largest provides 44% of grant income and the top three 84%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
44% 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 YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2019 100% · 2020 51% · 2021 53% · 2022 100% · 2023 72% — 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.
Where its funders are
YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER draws 100% of its grant income from funders outside Montana, across 3 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $139k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state 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.
Organizations like YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER
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 Montana
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
64% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
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 YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER: 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 YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER?
- YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER (Montana) receives grants from 5 organizations whose IRS filings report $315,215 to it, the largest being PARK COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ($139,215). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER have?
- IRS filings report 5 organizations giving $315,215 in grants to YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER, 1 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER?
- PARK COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $139,215 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like YELLOWSTONE ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Montana. 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 Yellowstone Ecological Research Center →
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 5 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