Tomkat Ranch Educational Foundation (TKREF)

History and Activities

The Tomkat Ranch Educational Foundation was founded in 2008 by environmentalist billionaire Tom Steyer and his wife Katherine (Kat) Taylor as a working, environmentally conscious ranch focused on achieving “equity, human health, environmental sustainability, and biodiversity.” ^{2 3}

TKREF works on what it calls “regenerative ranching, a style of ranching that seeks to produce food while benefiting the ecosystem through improving soil health, providing space for wildlife, and improving the climate. TKREF also advocates for grass-fed meat, hosts meetings and other gatherings to promote women in ranching and healthy school food, and conducts ranchland monitoring to support the science of conservation. The foundation monitors birds, soil, vegetation, water, and weather.  ^{6 5 7 8}

People

The co-founders of the Tomkat Ranch Educational Foundation are Tom Steyer and his wife, Kat Taylor. ⁹

Steyer is a hedge-fund billionaire and major donor to the Democratic Party and to the environmentalist movement who is worth an estimated $2 billion as of July 2025. Steyer is the founder of the NextGen Climate Action Committee, a PAC supporting candidates who embrace climate change as a major electoral issue. Steyer is an opponent of President Donald Trump who advocated for impeaching the president during his first term in office. Steyer also ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic Party nomination for president in the 2020 election. Steyer created and funds a collection on foundations, nonprofits, and SuperPACs collectively called the Steyer Network. TKREF is one foundation in that network. Others include TomKat Charitable Trust, the TomKat Foundation, the NextGen Education Fund, and NextGen Policy. ^{10 11 12 13 14 15}

Taylor is the co-founder and board chair of the Beneficial State Bank and is described as working “in service of restoring social, racial, gender justice, and environmental well-being for an equitable and inclusive world.” Taylor is also the founder of other joint projects with Steyer, including TomKat MeDiA and the TomKat Foundation, a private foundation. Taylor is also the co-chair of the Central Kitchen Advisory Board for the Oakland Unified School District and sits on the boards of the Community Development Bankers Association, the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, Ecotrust, Evrnu, Forager, the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, the Harvard Board of Overseers, KQED, NextGen Policy, ProPublica, the UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute External Advisory Board, and the Yuerba Buena Center for the Arts. ²

Financials and Grantmaking

According to tax filings, in 2023 Tomkat Ranch Educational Foundation reported $856,671 in revenue, $4,029,671 in expenses, and $4,214,621 in assets. Of its expenses, TKREF reported spending $2,627,884 on promoting sustainable land use practices and ecologically friendly animal husbandry and agriculture, as well as investing in carbon sequestration to combat climate change. ¹⁶

That year, TKREF also distributed $1,688,764 in grants. Notable grants include $500,000 to the Center for Ecoliteracy, $390,000 to Point Blue Conservation Science, $250,000 to Foodcorps Inc, $50,000 to the Regenerative Agriculture Foundation, $37,729 to Puente de La Costa Sur, and $25,000 to Women in Ranching Inc. TKREF also reported generating nearly $100,000 in revenue, which it says is related to its tax exempt purposes by raising awareness of “agriculture focused on climate stability.” ¹⁶

In its tax filings, TKREF reported receiving contributions from five foundations in 2023: the Battery Foundation ($92,136), the Johnston Family Foundation for Urban Agriculture ($5,000), the Campbell Foundation for the Environment ($50,000), the Mighty Arrow Family Foundation ($25,000), and the San Francisco Foundation ($472,000). ¹⁶