California Ricelands Waterbird Foundation
Public records show a registered, tax-exempt organization in good standing.
What it says it does
Enhance the ecological value of California rice fields to help sustain the millions of waterbirds and other wildlife in the pacific flyway for future generations.
- Income
- $99,380
- Spending
- $97,792
- Reserves
- 39.9 months of spending
- Largest source of income
- donations and private grants, 92%
Source: Form 990EZ for the year ending August 31, 2025, filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Rating method 2026.2. How we rate
Financial health
Strong: 96 out of 100. Higher than 85% of charities in its peer group (animals, under $250k).
Reserves
35 of 35Spendable reserves would cover 39.9 months of spending.
Debt
20 of 20It owes 11% of what it owns.
Living within its means
12 of 15Income exceeded spending by 2% of income.
Source: Form 990EZ for the year ending August 31, 2025, filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Rating method 2026.2. How we rate
Governance
This organization files the short tax form, which does not ask about boards, policies or audits. That is normal for a small charity and is not a mark against it.
Source: Form 990EZ for the year ending August 31, 2025, filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Rating method 2026.2. How we rate
Impact evidence
Describes programs. Its tax return describes what it does but we have found no measurable results in it.
Programs described in its return (1)
- $79,481 spent. Over the past year or so, weve seen a continued transition to more reliance on use of our donor funds to keep significant numbers of enhanced habitat acres out on the landscape as the State investments continued to trend lower with lessening reduced overall concerns over drought conditions in California. With the support of all our many donors we have kept the habitat pipeline flowing and even forged new ground by continuing our pilot testing of new innovative approaches to nesting habitat. We also continued to assist our partner organizations in deploying their funding to projects helping birds the Sacramento Valley. Our Bid4Birds web-based platform continues at the one-stop shop for our partners to communicate about funded programs and gather digital applications from rice growers who are interested in participating. We accomplish this through implementation of several ongoing projects.Bid4Birds Habitat Program: This innovative habitat enhancement program focuses on creating critical shorebird and waterfowl habitat at the precise time periods when habitat is the most scarce. This special targeting of habitat investment, precisely where and when its most needed, provides cost-efficiencies by spending our donor funds within the exact weeks/months that are most critical. Thanks to our donors, this is our main perennial program delivering world-class waterbird habitat year-over-year. In fiscal year 2024-25, we supported both a Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 program. In both seasons, the Foundation supported the programs by hosting them on our Bid4Birds web platform to process bids and implement our analytic process for prioritizing projects. The Fall program created over 2,800 acres of valuable habitat from July through October 2024. This effort was funded by significant contributions from DWR and CDFW. The CDFW funds came to us through a unique partnership agreement involving The Nature Conservancy. The Spring 2025 program also created over 2,800 acres of valuable habitat from February to April. Testing New Approaches to Nesting Habitat: In fiscal year 2024-25, we continued our work piloting a new way of establishing cover crops for the purpose of providing nesting habitat for upland nesting waterbirds. Normally, a cover crop is planted in the fall after rice harvest and then grows over the course of the winter, thus the field could not be winter-flooded. Based on our previous years testing, we believe it is possible to establish the cover crop after winter-flooded rice fields have begun drawing down in late-winter if the grower is planning to idle the acres the following season. These kinds of innovative approaches warrant further study because our future will likely include a greater frequency of planned idling. This creates an opportunity to provide much needed upland nesting habitat for locally breeding waterfowl and to engage interested farmers who would benefit from other revenue streams when idling.This fiscal year, we again worked with one of our producer partners to fly-on the cover crop seed into winter-flooded fields in Butte County in February 2025. Enhancing our Winter-flooded Rice Acres: State funding investments into core winter flooding of ricelands continued this fiscal year with $250,000 of state funds deployed to projects using our Foundation website and implementation resources provided by CRC to administer the Program. Through this CRC-managed rollout, we are also able to offer an enhanced cost-share on the west side of the Valley where prohibitive water costs have been limiting winter-flooded rice acreage. Over 8,500 acres of winter-flooded rice were successfully enrolled into winter flooding contracts.
Source: Form 990EZ for the year ending August 31, 2025, filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Rating method 2026.2. How we rate
Legitimacy checks
Is it registered with the IRS? Passed.
Listed in the IRS master file of tax-exempt organizations as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
Source: Exempt Organizations Business Master File, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
Has the IRS revoked its tax-exempt status? Passed.
Not on the IRS automatic revocation list.
Source: Automatic revocation of exemption list, Internal Revenue Service, file dated November 6, 2026.
Are donations tax-deductible? Passed.
On the IRS list of organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions.
Source: Publication 78 data: organizations eligible for tax-deductible contributions, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
Is it keeping up with its IRS filings? Passed.
Most recent return on file covers the year ending August 2025.
Source: Exempt Organizations Business Master File, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
How long has it been tax-exempt? Passed.
Recognized by the IRS since February 2016.
Source: Exempt Organizations Business Master File, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
Is it in good standing with state regulators? Passed.
Not on California's list of charities barred from soliciting. Other states are not yet checked.
Source: May Not Operate or Solicit for Charitable Purposes list, California Attorney General, Registry of Charities and Fundraisers, file dated November 4, 2026.
Ratings and checks are our reading of public records, using the published method. They are not a statement about anyone's honesty. If you work for this organization, you can send corrections or results, confirm you want gifts through Veridonate, or ask to be removed from giving.