The Sand County Foundation Inc
Madison, WI · EIN 39-6089450. Reported 59 grants totalling $7,730,441 to 55 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. The IRS has no activity classification on file for this one, so we cannot tell you whether it is a community foundation or a single-institution support fund. The recipient list below is the better guide.
- How spread out its giving is. 55 distinct organizations, with 84% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is extreme concentration. A grantmaker sending three quarters of its money to one organization is in practice a support fund for that organization, whatever its classification says, and an unsolicited request is very unlikely to go anywhere.
- How much its list changes. 8% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is below the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and well below the 67% private foundations manage. A list that turns over this much is one a newcomer can realistically join.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $10,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $10,000; the smallest was $6,000 and the largest $5,608,876. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Environmental Policy Innovation Center | College Park, MD | $6,511,719 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Alliance for the Great Lakes | Chicago, IL | $230,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| River Network | Boulder, CO | $150,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Policylink | Oakland, CA | $110,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Board of Regents of University of Wisconsin System | Madison, WI | $72,058 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Regents of University of Minnesota | Minneapolis, MN | $63,258 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Cdm Smith Inc | Boston, MA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Farmers Edge | Minneapolis, MN | $41,872 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| University of New Mexico | Albuquerque, NM | $26,900 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Bartholomay Kattle Kompany LLC | Sheldon, ND | $20,000 | 2 | 1 | 2023 |
| Raftelis Financial Consultants Inc | Charlotte, NC | $16,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| National Audubon Society Inc | New York, NY | $14,746 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Moonshot Missions Inc | Bethesda, MD | $13,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Stemper Hay & Grain | Plymouth, WI | $10,980 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| 120 Water Audit Inc | Zionsville, IN | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Barney Creek Livestock LLC | Livingston, MT | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Beretta Dairy | Santa Rosa, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Bluegreen Alliance Foundation | Minneapolis, MN | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Bowles Farming Company Inc | Los Banos, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Britt Farms Inc | Clifton Hill, MO | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Brubaker Farms LLC | Mount Joy, PA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Center for Neighborhood Technology | Chicago, IL | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Cope Grass Farms LLC | Truxton, MO | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Donor Advised Charitable Giving | Lone Tree, CO | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Greenfield Farms | Skaneateles, NY | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Hidden Hollow Hideaway Cattle and Guest Ranch | Townsend, MT | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Hutchison Brothers | Cordova, MD | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| John Bunker Sands Wetland Center | Dallas, TX | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Jones Family Farms Fund | Derby, CT | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Ketos Inc | Milpitas, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Levalley Ranch II Ltd Rllp | Hotchkiss, CO | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Little Village Environmental Justice Organization | Chicago, IL | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Long Green Farms Inc | Rising Sun, MD | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| May Ranch | Lamar, CO | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Mm Terry Ranch Ltd | Dallas, TX | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Munns Flying M Ranch | Snowville, UT | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Myrin Ranch Inc | Altamont, UT | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| New Jersey Future Inc | Trenton, NJ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Nolls' Dairy Farm LLC | Alma, WI | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Oetting Homestead Farms Inc | Concordia, MO | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Pankey Ranch LLC | Craig, CO | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Park Farming Organics | Meridian, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| R&s Flinchbaugh LLC | York, PA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Rancho San Pedro Joint Venture | San Antonio, TX | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Regnerative Farmer Inc | Hickory, NC | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Smith Family Farms LLC | Elk City, OK | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Sunnyside Farms Inc | Scipio Center, NY | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Table Rock Farm Inc | Castle, NY | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Tomandl Farms | Medford, WI | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Ute Creek Cattle Company Inc | Bueyeros, NM | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Wheel-View Farm | Shelburne Falls, MA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Yardley Cattle Company | Beaver, UT | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Vernon County Land & Water Conservation Department | Viroqua, WI | $7,623 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Res Great Lakes | Bellaire, TX | $6,222 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Glacierland Resource Conservation & Development | Green Bay, WI | $6,063 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
3 of 55 (5%) received money in more than one year over the 4 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.
- Alliance for the Great Lakes
CONSERVATION POLICY & INFLUENCE - Greenfield Farms
LEOPOLD CONSERVATION AWARD - Res Great Lakes
POLLINATOR HABITAT GRANTS
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 11 of 55 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 | 9 | $86,000 | $10,000 |
| 2022 | 23 | $762,686 | $10,000 |
| 2023 | 14 | $1,100,209 | $10,000 |
| 2024 | 13 | $5,781,546 | $10,000 |
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
85% of its giving went to organizations in Maryland. 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.
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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 $10,000 -- 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 Maryland.
- 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.
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from The Sand County Foundation Inc's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2021-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 6 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 7 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: 44 E Mifflin Street 1005, Madison, WI, 53703.
EIN 39-6089450 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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