GRANT GRAPH · the independent grant data index

Who funds environmental conservation groups? Grant data from tax filings and live federal listings

Name: environmental conservation grant funding data (Grant Graph)
Creator: Grant Graph
License: public domain sources; compilation freely citable with attribution

From 2025-2026 IRS filings: 181 grants totaling $11.1 million went to environmental conservation groups-related work. The largest funders, the typical grant size, and what is open at the federal level right now, all from public records.

The largest private funders of environmental conservation groups, from their own tax filings

Funder	Grants	Total
SUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION	33	$7.4 million
DORIS DUKE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION INC	1	$407,000
The Kenbe Foundation	2	$350,000
Sheldon and Audrey Katz Foundation	6	$325,000
ELANCO FOUNDATION INC	2	$301,101
The McKnight Foundation	2	$300,000
NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH	2	$234,123
M PIUZE FOUNDATION	9	$210,000
NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION	2	$204,497
WOLFF FAMILY FOUNDATION	1	$110,000

Across all funders: 181 grants, $11.1 million total, median grant $10,000.

Where the money went

State	Grants	Total
DE	3	$3.8 million
WA	8	$1.2 million
IL	1	$1.0 million
NY	18	$706,671
CA	25	$611,501
SD	3	$420,200

Open federal opportunities addressing environmental conservation groups (nonprofit-eligible)

Matched against the full synopsis text of every posted opportunity, not the listing title alone; restricted to opportunities open to nonprofit applicants. Federal programs rarely use the phrase "environmental conservation"; this table also matches the agency vocabulary: conservation, habitat restoration, watershed.

Number	Title	Agency	Award range	Closes
USDA-FS-2028-FLP	Forest Legacy Program - FY2028 Funding	Cassie Adams Grantor	$5,000 to $20.0 million	09/11/2026
W9126G262RFP9554	Conservation and Forestry Program Support (2026-2031) for Environmental Natural	Cheryl Vendemia Grantor	$1.2 million to $7.6 million	09/14/2026
USDA-FS-2026-CFP	Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program	Hannah Bergemann Grantor	$1 to $600,000	10/13/2026
NOAA-NMFS-HCPO-2026-33781	DARRP Restoration Implementation Grants (2026)	Maria Aguiniga Grantor	$2.5 million to $100.0 million	11/18/2026
P26AS00146	Readiness and Recreation Initiative (RARI) – Recurring 5 Year Notice	National Park Service	$250,000 to $3.0 million	11/30/2030
P23AS00132	NPS Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Units (CESU) Master Cooperative Agreements	National Park Service	unspecified	12/31/2027
P11AT80708	Data Management	National Park Service	unspecified to unspecified	rolling
NOAA-NMFS-FHQ-2027-33398	National Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program (BREP) - FY2026/27	Keisha Trent Grantor	$50,000 to $400,000	01/22/2027

grants.gov's own loose keyword search returns 281 listings mentioning "environmental conservation groups" anywhere (retrieved 2026-09-17); the table above is our stricter relevance cut.

What these numbers do not say

Private-funder figures come from 990 and 990-PF filings as released by the IRS; filings lag reality by one to two years, and organizations below the e-file thresholds are not represented.
A funder appearing here funded this cause historically. It is not a statement that they are accepting applications.
Filings include corrections: voided checks, returned grants and corpus-distribution adjustments appear as negative amounts and are counted as filed. They are a fraction of a percent of the total.
Cause matching is keyword-based against grant purpose text and recipient names; it undercounts grants described in other words.

Grant Graph is an independent, free index built from public data: IRS Form 990 series e-file releases and the grants.gov API. It is not affiliated with grants.gov or any federal agency. Every figure above is reproducible from the cited public sources.