The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
Philadelphia, PA · EIN 23-1352265. Reported 69 grants totalling $4,568,157 to 35 organizations across tax years 2020-2024, 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 The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the IRS classifies it under environment rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE C420) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 35 distinct organizations, with 83% 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. 54% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 4 year-to-year transitions. That is about the 56% median for grantmaking charities -- lower than the 67% median for private foundations. It describes the organizations it already funds, not whether it would consider a new one.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $9,716. Half of what it reported fell between $7,384 and $16,120; the smallest was $5,088 and the largest $819,180. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meadowbrook Farm | Philadelphia, PA | $3,794,774 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy | Schwenksville, PA | $87,216 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Fairmount Park Conservancy | Philadelphia, PA | $84,499 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Pennypack Ecological Restoration Tr | Huntingdon Vy, PA | $66,569 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Heritage Conservancy | Doylestown, PA | $50,201 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| French and Pickering Creeks Conservation Trust Inc | Devault, PA | $43,260 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| National Audubon Society Inc | New York, NY | $39,415 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Montgomery County Conservation District | Collegeville, PA | $39,241 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Delaware River City Corporation | Philadelphia, PA | $36,433 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Riverbend Environmental Education Center Inc | Gladwyne, PA | $35,425 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Haverford Township | Havertown, PA | $35,106 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Upper Darby Township Shade Tree Commission | Upper Darby, PA | $30,694 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Tookany-Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership | Philadelphia, PA | $25,055 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Haverford Township | Havertown, PA | $17,262 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education | Philadelphia, PA | $12,813 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| East Pikeland Township | Kimberton, PA | $12,800 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Excel Events | Levittown, PA | $12,461 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Darby Creek Valley Association | Norwood, PA | $11,597 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Open Land Conservancy of Chester County | Paoli, PA | $11,323 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Milford Township | Quakertown, PA | $10,716 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Chester Ridley Crum Watersheds Association | Newtown Sq, PA | $9,950 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Newtown Township | Newtown, PA | $9,716 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Friends of the Wissahickon Inc | Philadelphia, PA | $9,350 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Stroud Water Research Center | Avondale, PA | $8,189 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Stroud Water Research Center Inc | Avondale, PA | $8,015 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Delaware Riverkeeper Network | Bristol, PA | $7,905 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| West Norriton Township | Jeffersonville, PA | $7,826 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Natural Lands Trust Incorporated | Media, PA | $7,619 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Brandywine Red Clay Alliance | West Chester, PA | $6,743 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Eastern Delaware County Stormwater Collaborative | Morton, PA | $6,583 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| John Bartram Association | Philadelphia, PA | $6,315 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art | Chadds Ford, PA | $6,004 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Upper Uwchian Township | Chester Springs, PA | $5,850 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Upper Perkiomen School District | Pennsburg, PA | $5,760 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Meadowood Corporation | Lansdale, PA | $5,472 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
17 of 35 (49%) received money in more than one year over the 5 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 kind of organizations it funds
By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 19 of 35 recipients we could match to a registered organization. The categories are the IRS's, not ours -- 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 14 | $813,414 | $7,920 |
| 2021 | 19 | $941,170 | $8,189 |
| 2022 | 14 | $1,016,553 | $14,762 |
| 2023 | 12 | $948,900 | $12,212 |
| 2024 | 10 | $848,120 | $13,776 |
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
99% of its giving went to organizations in Pennsylvania. 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 a sign of overlapping priorities and nothing more: they do not show that any of these funders would consider a new organization. Each page says what its filings show.
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 $9,716 -- 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 Pennsylvania.
- 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 The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2020-2024). Grant figures are from its returns. Recipient classifications, the concentration and retention figures and the funders that support the same organizations are our own calculations from them, described in how we build this.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 10 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: 100 North 20TH Street 405, Philadelphia, PA, 19103.
EIN 23-1352265 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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