Organizations Filed Purposes:
The Santa Monica Mountains Fund (the Fund) works to protect and encourage appreciation and understanding of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The Fund achieves this by supporting National Park Service (NPS) efforts in education programs, wildlife research and protection, trails and habitat restoration and outreach, stewardship and philanthropy.
Education Program Support: The Fund supports the Open Outdoors for Kids program which brings nearly 20,000 4th graders to the Santa Monica Mountains National Park (the Park) to learn about plants, animals, and Native American heritage. We funded the buses and volunteer staff to bring the kids from Title 1 schools in Los Angeles and Ventura to the Park for their day outdoors.This year celebrates the 20th anniversary of our SAMO Youth program which has been bringing outstanding college and high school students to the Park for an intense mentoring journey with NPS rangers over the summer. SAMO Fund has been involved in the program since 2016. This year, we also employed SAMO Youth alumni as junior leaders to support this year's cohort. Both of these programs offer summer work opportunities to outstanding young scholars in L.A. and Ventura Counties, exposing them to the Park's mission and career possibilities.
Trails and Habitat Restoration: In November 2018, the Woolsey fire ripped through the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area decimating 88% of NPS owned land. Since then, we have been working with NPS to support the recovery. Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy awarded the fund $130,000 to help rebuild Peter Strauss Ranch. We have also secured nearly 25% of the $1.1 million required to replace the movie sets at the destroyed Paramount Ranch. We are supporting the rebuilding of bridges on the Backbone Trail with grants from REI and Ventura County Community Foundation. In 2020 we expect to spend additional funds on these projects as they continue. Thanks to a grant from the Metabolic Studio, the Fund has employed a new manager for the native plant nursery at Rancho Sierra Vista and has supported upgrades to this operation. New equipment is ensuring that healthy plants can now be produced to support habitat restoration throughout the mountains.
Wildlife Research and Protection:In addition to student interns supporting wildlife research, history, archeology, plant ecology, and geographic information system data registration, the Fund donated $75K to the National Park Services wildlife research program which is being used to support staffing and provide satellite collars so that the biologists can track and understand the movement of big cats. Thanks to volunteer support, the Fund also raised sufficient funds to replace the remote wildlife tracking cameras that burnt in the Woolsey Fire. The Fund continues to support the #BreakThePoisonChain campaign by highlighting the risks of rodenticide to wildlife and pets.
Executives Listed on Filing
Total Salary includes financial earnings, benefits, and all related organization earnings listed on tax filing
| Name | Title | Hours Per Week | Total Salary |
|---|
| Deanna Armbruster | COO | 40 | $30,000 |
| Charlotte F Parry | Executive Dir. | 24 | $25,584 |
| Arthur E Eck | CFO | 30 | $13,236 |
| Trevis J Niemeyer | Director | 1 | $0 |
| Annmarie Greenwood | Director | 1 | $0 |
| Marc Kaplan | Director | 1 | $0 |
| Carolhenry | Director | 1 | $0 |
| Amanda Greene | Director | 1 | $0 |
| Kim Kovacs | Director | 1 | $0 |
| Lynn C Kronzek | Director | 1 | $0 |
| Leah Culberg | Director | 1 | $0 |
| Dennis H Washburn | Director | 1 | $0 |
| Joyce A Brykman | Treasurer | 1 | $0 |
| Jean Schmit | Secretary | 1 | $0 |
| Thomas Liu | Vice President | 1 | $0 |
| Sara N Horner | President | 2 | $0 |
Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (
public 990 form dataset) from:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202013219349313261_public.xml