Woodland Park Zoological Society
Seattle, WA · EIN 91-6070005. Reported 53 grants totalling $4,626,305 to 21 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 Woodland Park Zoological Society, the IRS classifies it under animal welfare rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE D500) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 21 distinct organizations, with 11% 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 much its list changes. 78% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and above the 67% private foundations manage. This list is close to settled, so a newcomer has to displace someone rather than fill a gap.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $60,000. Half of what it reported fell between $49,751 and $120,000; the smallest was $6,600 and the largest $317,318. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Idaho Zoological Society | Boise, ID | $525,542 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Lake Superior Zoological Society | Duluth, MN | $481,452 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Como Friends | Saint Paul, MN | $434,848 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Zoological Society of Milwaukee County | Milwaukee, WI | $380,632 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| International Crane Foundation Inc | Baraboo, WI | $369,759 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Point Defiance Zoological Society | Tacoma, WA | $316,601 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Grizzly Discovery Center a Not- for-Profit Corporation | W Yellowstone, MT | $316,600 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Racine Zoological Society | Racine, WI | $315,328 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Henry Vilas Zoological Society | Madison, WI | $266,061 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Tautphaus Park Zoological Society Inc | Idaho Falls, ID | $265,320 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Seattle Aquarium Society-Seas | Seattle, WA | $202,224 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Minnesota Zoo Foundation | Apple Valley, MN | $186,410 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Northwest Trek Foundation | Eatonville, WA | $116,208 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Dakota Zoological Society Inc | Bismarck, ND | $115,600 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Zoomontana Inc | Billings, MT | $89,540 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| New Zoological Society Inc | Suamico, WI | $56,600 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Red River Zoological Society | Fargo, ND | $56,600 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Greater Minot Zoological Society | Minot, ND | $55,468 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Seward Association for the Advancement of Marine Science | Seward, AK | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Lion Country Safari | Loxahatchee, FL | $17,512 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Cultural Access Washington | Seattle, WA | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
16 of 21 (76%) 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.
- Como Zoo
ADVANCING EMPATHY PROGRAM - Idaho Zoological Society
EMPATHY CAPACITY BUILDING GRANT PROGRAM
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 19 of 21 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 | $711,545 | $51,400 |
| 2022 | 20 | $2,337,662 | $113,304 |
| 2023 | 9 | $566,708 | $39,030 |
| 2024 | 15 | $1,010,390 | $60,000 |
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
30% of its giving went to organizations in Wisconsin. 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 $60,000 -- 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 Wisconsin.
- 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 Woodland Park Zoological Society'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 14 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 1 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: 5500 Phinney Ave N, Seattle, WA, 98103.
EIN 91-6070005 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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