Peterffy Foundation

The Peterffy Foundation, operating publicly as One Small Planet (onesmallplanet.org), embodies a philanthropic philosophy built on four explicit values: interconnection, integrity, reciprocity, and "do no harm." Founded in 2015, the foundation is led by siblings William (Will), Alexandra, and Catherine Peterffy — children of Thomas Peterffy, founder of Interactive Brokers — with no officer compensation drawn by any director. Will Peterffy serves as Founder and CEO of the One Small Planet operating platform.

The foundation operates as strictly invitation-only. IRS filings confirm it "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations," and no application portal, form, or public instructions exist. This is not a bureaucratic constraint — it reflects the foundation's trust-based philanthropy framework, supported directly through a 2023 grant to Buckminster Fuller Institute for the "Trust Based Philanthropy 2023 Gathering." Relationship-building precedes any funding discussion by design.

Grant relationships are long and multi-stage. Land Is Life, the top grantee, received 10 grants totaling $3.09M across multiple years — covering general operating support, Indigenous community emergency operations in Ecuador, and the Black Indigenous Global Project. Sky's The Limit Fund received 4 grants totaling $950,000 for wilderness therapy scholarships. Bioneers Collective Heritage Institute received 3 grants totaling $1.125M, including restricted support for "Bioneers University." First-time applicants are not entering a competitive funding cycle — they are starting a multi-year relationship.

Philanthropic Program Manager Ben Meeus brings 15-plus years of direct experience in environmental justice, Indigenous rights, and Amazon rainforest protection. His background maps precisely to the portfolio's highest-funded areas. The foundation's One Small Planet Philanthropic Fund operates three complementary portfolios: One Small Planet (broad environmental and Indigenous), the Living Forest Project (rainforest protection), and Reweaving the Web (social fabric and community resilience). Organizations whose work genuinely spans multiple pillars tend to receive the most sustained multi-grant support.

For first-time applicants, the most realistic entry points are through fiscal sponsors already embedded in the portfolio — particularly Common Counsel Foundation, Tides Foundation, Buckminster Fuller Institute, and Amalgamated Foundation — or through peer organizations such as Land Is Life, Amazon Watch, Bioneers, and Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples. Cold approaches without network introductions are extremely unlikely to advance.

Annual grants paid have ranged from $3.88M in 2020 (the foundation's first major-scale year after Thomas Peterffy's $77.98M founding contribution) to a peak of $7.61M in 2022, settling at $7.43M in 2023. The most recent database record shows total assets of approximately $172.2M — substantially above the $110.97M reported on the 2023 Form 990 — suggesting additional contributions or investment gains since the last available filing. The foundation's net investment income was $2.13M in 2023 and $2.32M in 2022, well below total giving, confirming that grants are supported by capital infusions rather than investment returns alone.

Grant size from the most recent 990 analysis (45 grants): median $40,000, average $86,164, range $789 to $500,000. Across the full historical dataset (201 grants, $18.9M total), the average rises to $94,109, reflecting multi-year cumulative totals for anchor grantees. The foundation will write large restricted checks for concrete, place-based work: $620,000 to Quipa Inc, $500,000 to Far Away Projects (mushroom farm project), $400,000 to Pumamaqui Foundation (purchase of 100 hectares in Serena, Ecuador for a Kichwa community), and $349,751 to University of New Hampshire restricted to an Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Center.

By program area (estimated from grantee data): - Indigenous rights and land sovereignty: ~40% of total funding. Top recipients include Land Is Life ($3.09M), Common Counsel Foundation/Indigenous Women's Flow Fund ($273,000), Mothers of the Amazon ($266,085), Illapu Movement ($250,900), and Pueblo Originario Kichwa De Sarayaku ($134,506). - Environmental conservation and forests: ~25%. Oregon Natural Resources Council ($400K), Wilderness Society ($240K), Raincoast Conservation ($300K combined), Southern Environmental Law Center ($100K). - Outdoor and wilderness behavioral health: ~10%. Sky's The Limit Fund ($950K), Outdoor Behavioral Health Council ($141,714), University of New Hampshire ($349,751). - Regenerative agriculture and food systems: ~8%. Drylands Agroecology Research ($260K combined), Seeds of Wisdom ($200K), La Maida Project ($150K). - Marine and ocean: ~5%. SeaLegacy/Only One ($400K combined), Greenwave ($200K), Florida International University shark and ray program ($100K). - Social and racial justice with ecological component: ~7%. Alliance for Global Justice ($130K), Peace Development Fund ($151K), Canticle Farm/Land Back ($102K).

Geographic headquarters of grantees skew toward California (63 grants), Colorado (21), New York (20), and DC (10), but the actual funded work is heavily international — particularly Ecuador, Brazil, the Amazon basin, and the Pacific Northwest coast.

The Peterffy Foundation sits within a cohort of similarly-capitalized family foundations with assets near $172M. Despite comparable asset size, the foundations differ substantially in focus, geography, and operating style.

Within this peer group, Peterffy is the most distinctively thematic and internationally oriented. Singer and Oprah operate closer to traditional broad-portfolio private foundations without comparable focus on frontline environmental and Indigenous community work. The Kuni Foundation concentrates on Pacific Northwest healthcare infrastructure — an entirely different sector. Gambrell focuses on arts and education in the Carolinas.

What unites all five is the absence of open RFPs or competitive application cycles. Competition for attention runs through networks and trusted intermediaries rather than grant portals. Of the peer set, Peterffy is the only foundation with a publicly accessible website (onesmallplanet.org) that describes its philanthropic philosophy, program pillars, and staff contacts — providing would-be grantees more transparency and access points than any peer in this cohort. The foundation also stands alone in combining philanthropy with a direct venture fund and hands-on land stewardship — a three-pronged capital deployment model that distinguishes it from every asset peer.

No IRS filings beyond fiscal year 2023 were publicly available as of March 2026, but several data points illuminate activity in 2024-2025.

In June 2024, Forbes published "Regenerative Visions for a Small Planet: Family Offices & Impact," featuring One Small Planet and Will Peterffy as a leading example of integrated family office philanthropy. The article highlighted the dual-track approach of direct grantmaking alongside impact investing in regenerative systems.

The Will Peterffy family office also joined Cerulean Ventures' $10M pre-seed close focused on climate software solutions, per Family Office Hub reporting. This is consistent with the venture portfolio (Fire Fund), which already includes ReSeed ($4.6M commercial fundraise closed), Dendra Systems, Regen Network, Cruz Foam (named to TIME's Best Inventions of 2023), and Miraterra.

On the land stewardship side, a 2024 outcomes report is published on the One Small Planet website for the Wallace County, Kansas project (2,740 acres managed by The Provenance Company's Julie Mettenburg, a sixth-generation farmer and Savory Institute Master Field Professional). The Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica project (2,500 acres of primary rainforest containing 2.5% of global biodiversity) remains active with named on-the-ground stewards.

Philanthropic reports for 2021, 2022, and 2023 are available via onesmallplanet.org. The 2023 report documents the Trust-Based Philanthropy Gathering support and ongoing Amazon basin commitments. Leadership has remained stable across all available filings: William, Alexandra, and Catherine Peterffy hold their roles without compensation, and Christopher Uzpen continues as Secretary and Chief Legal Counsel. No leadership transitions or program closures have been publicly announced.

Because the Peterffy Foundation operates exclusively on a preselected, invitation-only basis, traditional approaches — cold LOIs, online portals, foundation directory submissions — will not work. The path to funding runs entirely through relationship and network alignment.

Build presence in the right networks. The foundation's top grantees are clustered in identifiable communities: the Bioneers Conference (typically October, San Francisco Bay Area); Land Is Life's global Indigenous rights network; Amazon Watch; the Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Council's member organizations; and Common Counsel Foundation's progressive grantee ecosystem. Organizations already embedded in these circles have natural credibility with the Peterffy philanthropic team.

Work through fiscal sponsors. The foundation already channels grants through Tides Foundation, Common Counsel Foundation, Amalgamated Foundation, and Buckminster Fuller Institute. If your organization lacks 501(c)(3) status or is not yet visible to the Peterffy team, apply for a flow fund through these fiscal sponsors — particularly Common Counsel's Indigenous Women's Flow Fund and Buckminster Fuller Institute's Regenerosity Network, both of which the foundation has explicitly funded.

Contact Ben Meeus via hello@onesmallplanet.org. He is the Philanthropic Program Manager with 15-plus years in Indigenous rights and rainforest protection. A brief 3-4 sentence relationship-building message describing your work and alignment with One Small Planet's values is appropriate. Do not attach a formal proposal on first contact. Introductions through shared grantees carry significantly more weight than cold outreach.

Use the foundation's language precisely. Core framework terms include: trust-based philanthropy, frontline communities, land sovereignty, regenerative systems, decolonized worldview, interconnection, reciprocity, do no harm. Proposals using these terms authentically — grounded in actual community-led work — will resonate. Avoid corporate grant language, metric-heavy capacity framing, or proposals centered on organizational scale.

Highlight place-based and capital components. The foundation's largest restricted grants involve concrete, tangible investments: land purchases ($400K for Ecuadorian Kichwa land, $160K for Waterfall Unity Alliance land purchase), infrastructure ($349,751 for UNH wilderness therapy center), and community-scale projects. If your work includes a capital or land component alongside programming, make it visible.

Timing. No grant calendar or review cycle is published. Annual giving has been consistent at $7-8M. Budget 12-24 months for relationship development before any formal funding discussion.