Grantmakers › District of Columbia
Conservation Nation
Washington, DC · EIN 52-0853312. Reported 30 grants totalling $1,400,532 to 23 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. For Conservation Nation, by its IRS classification it exists to support one specific institution in animal welfare -- typically its own parent hospital, university or school (NTEE D115).
- How spread out its giving is. 23 distinct organizations, with 26% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $24,750. Half of what it reported fell between $7,500 and $90,000; the smallest was $7,500 and the largest $200,000. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City Kids to Wilderness Project Inc | Washington, DC | $370,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| African People & Wildlife Fund Inc | Far Hills, NJ | $229,607 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Veterinary Initiative for Endangered Wildlife Inc | Bozeman, MT | $202,100 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Inward Bound Mindfulness Education Inc | Attleboro, MA | $190,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Save the Rhino International Inc | New York, NY | $100,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Yellowstone Forever | Bozeman, MT | $90,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Nez Perce Tribe Wildlife Division | Lapwal, ID | $39,369 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Wildlifedirect Inc | Davis, WV | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| The Girls Foundation of Tanzania | Portland, ME | $25,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| The International Snow Leopard Trust | Seattle, WA | $24,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Missouri Botanical Garden Board of Trustees | Saint Louis, MO | $9,956 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| A Rocha USA Inc | Austin, TX | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Black Women in Ecology Evolution and Marine Science Inc | Miami, FL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Detroit Hives Inc | Detroit, MI | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Ecology Project International | Missoula, MT | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Field Inclusive | Raleigh, NC | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Galveston Bay Foundation | Kemah, TX | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Inland Seas Education Association | Suttons Bay, MI | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Natures Nursery Center for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation | Waterville, OH | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Pacific American Foundation | Kailua, HI | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Sea Research Foundation Inc | Mystic, CT | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| South Sound Estuary Association | Olympia, WA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Vermilion Sea Institute | Seattle, WA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
6 of 23 (26%) received money in more than one year over the 3 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- City Kids to Wilderness Project Inc
Provide educational/experiential programming in DC and surrounding areas. Summer camp in Jackson Hole for city kids. A trip to Yellowstone National Park and High School summer internship in WY. - African People & Wildlife Fund
Funds the training/support for rapid response anti-poaching teams and a network of community-based human-elephant conflict mitigation officers. - View Veterinary Initiative for Endangered Wildlife
The Veterinary Initiative for Endangered Wildlife can secure on-the-ground veterinary care for the first time in Akagera's history and build the capacity of Rwanda's wildlife health workforce. - Ibme Inward Bound Mindful Education
Work on the City Kids Project to better equip staff and participants with proactive mindfulness practices through workshop. - Inward Bound Mindfulness
Funds the integration of mindfulness activities, resources, and training into the City Kids Wilderness programs and staff development activities. - Save the Rhino International Inc
Training/support to females in natural resource management.
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 22 of 23 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 1 | $24,000 | $24,000 |
| 2022 | 16 | $696,056 | $8,728 |
| 2024 | 13 | $680,476 | $39,369 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
26% of its giving went to organizations in District of Columbia. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
Down to the city
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $24,750 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in District of Columbia.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Related guides
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Conservation Nation's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2020-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 13 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 0 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: 1717 K Street Nw 900, Washington, DC, 20006.
EIN 52-0853312 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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