Donations to Iowa’s ‘Chickadee Checkoff’ decline, but DNR hopeful about its future

When it launched in 1982, more than 40,000 Iowans checked a box on their state income tax forms to donate to the Fish and Wildlife Fund.

Now, more than four decades since it was passed by the legislature, the number of people giving to the fund has declined significantly.

In tax year 2023, only 5,303 Iowans donated to the fund — marking an 87.7 percent decrease since it began.

In the last 20 years, the number of donors has declined by 50 percent. Today, just 0.3 percent of the total number of taxpayers in Iowa give to the fund, according to the DNR.

Stephanie Shepherd, a wildlife diversity biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said it’s hard to pinpoint why the decrease is happening. However, she thinks it’s partially tied to fewer people using physical income tax forms anymore.

“When it started, everybody was doing their returns on paper, and it was very easy to see everything and now, a lot of people either use tax preparers or do them online with a program like, TurboTax, which is less transparent,” Shepherd said. “If you don't go in knowing you want to do this, you may not even see it because it's really easy to miss.”

The Fish and Wildlife Fund — which is more affectionately known as the Chickadee Tax Checkoff — is an Iowa DNR program that funnels donated money into projects and research around nongame animals. This includes species like songbirds, bald eagles, salamanders, turtles, monarch butterflies, bees and more.

Shepherd said one reason they don’t know more about what is fueling the donation decline is because the DNR wants to put the money raised solely toward animals, research, and the agency’s staffing — rather than surveys and marketing.

How the tax checkoff works

Shepherd said the Iowa Department of Revenue collects money through the Chickadee Checkoff and funnels it back into the DNR’s Fish and Wildlife Trust Fund without taking any administrative fees.

On the 1040 income tax form, the checkoff is on line 21, under the “tax non-refundable credits and checkoff contributions,” section, which is under step five on the form.

There are typically four “checkoff” options on tax forms.

Shepherd said that the taxpayer must write out that they want the donation to go to the Fish and Wildlife Trust Fund and write how much they want to donate, despite the name referring to a “checkoff.” The donation must be at least $1.

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Shepherd, who has been with the Iowa DNR since 2005, said the cause that has the least amount of donations through the income tax form is dropped. At one point there were checkoffs for the Iowa State Fair Foundation; Firefighters Preparedness Fund and Veterans Trust Fund, but they were dropped from the form due to low fundraising numbers.

There’s some concern the Chickadee Checkoff could be dropped at some point too, but Shepherd said it’s still performing well enough to stay on the form.

“It definitely just makes us nervous, but I can tell you that we have consistently been the Checkoff with the highest amount of donations for all years,” Shepherd said. “We're cautiously hopeful that we'll continue to have the most number of donations. But if it dropped further, or fewer people continue to donate, then that might become an issue.”

Shepherd said the other checkoff on the tax form funds child abuse prevention in Iowa.

Iowans who forget to select the checkoff on their tax form can donate through an online site where people can make donations directly to the Wildlife Diversity Program.

Several other states have similar programs. They include Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia.

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By the numbers

Since the program was added to Iowa income tax forms, the fund has received $6,485,267 total between tax years 1982 and 2023.

Shepherd said the average donation was about $25 in 2023 but went as low as $12.

“With individual donations, they don’t need to be huge,” she said.

Since its inception, both the number of donors and their donations have dropped.

When the program launched in 1982, the donations on the income tax forms brought in $238,477 in donations. In 2023, the fund received $133,990 — resulting in a 43.8 percent decrease.

The checkoff’s first year — 1982 — remains the fund’s highest donation year.

Although both the amount donated and the number of donors have dropped overall over the last 43 years, the amount donated since 2000 has stayed fairly stable.

Between 2000 and 2023, the total amount of money donated per year to the DNR was between $110,261 and $167,066.

Even though there are fewer individual Iowans donating to the Fund, Shepherd said the incoming money has been able to stay steady over the last two decades because a smaller number of donors have been donating more money than in past years.

“It's interesting, because the amount of funding has stayed relatively stable since probably around 2011,” Shepherd said. “The number of donors has gone down, but they are donating more.”

Shepherd said the DNR is “cautious but hopeful” about the program’s future, especially since it is the foundation for many of the agency’s programs.

“It's why our program exists,” she said. “It kind of supports all of the work we do.”

In the past, donations have been used for projects like helping fund the DNR’s partnership with the Xerxes Society in creating a bumblebee atlas.

The funding has also helped the DNR research the wood thrush songbird that has declined by 60 percent since the 1960s.

“The majority of wildlife out there doesn't have a dedicated funding source,” Shepherd said. “There’s a lot of [research] that needs some extra funding. This gives the DNR the ability to have staff focused on those nongame wildlife species and really put more energy into them. The goal is to make sure that those species stay healthy.”

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Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com