· Private foundation
Bf Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k2 grants · $10k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $230k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GRAND CANYON TRUST | $40,000 |
| LOWELL OBSERVATORY | $35,000 |
| NORTHERN AZ UNIVERSITY | $25,000 |
| LOWELL OBSERVATORY | $25,000 |
| ASPEN VALLEY LAND TRUST | $25,000 |
| WILDERNESS LAND TRUST | $20,000 |
| GEORGIA O'KEEFE MUSEUM | $20,000 |
| ASPEN VALLEY LAND TRUST | $20,000 |
| WILDERNESS LAND TRUST | $10,000 |
| INDEPENDENCE PASS FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| ASPEN CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES | $5,000 |
| HIGH COUNTRY NEWS | $5,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 65% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +63% since the first grant, against +2% for the ones you funded once.
27 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 19 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- AVASPEN VALLEY LAND TRUST8× · 2017–2024 · $318k · revenue +177%
- HCHIGH COUNTRY NEWS8× · 2017–2024 · $245k · revenue +3%
- TGTHE GRAND CANYON TRUST INC7× · 2018–2024 · $178k · revenue +139%
Funded once
- JGJOHN GOLD PRE COLLEGIATEone grant, 2019 · $25k
- SFSANTA FE CONSERVATION TRUSTone grant, 2021 · $20k · revenue -52%
- SFSANTA FE PREPARATORY SCHOOLone grant, 2017 · $10k · revenue +2%
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The mission of estes valley land trust is to conserve land throughout the estes valley and surrounding areas for current and future generations.
Be a catalyst! Ignite our community's passion for nature and science.
To broaden the nature of a liberal arts education; teach critical thinking about social & environmental issues; foster understanding of & respect for natural & human communities; & cultivate a sense of place that encourages personal,…
Guided by artists, rooted in new mexico, site santa fe celebrates contemporary creative expression.
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
To provide essential value to our members, their careers, our partners, and the public, asce will: facilitate the advancement of technology; encourage and provide the tools for lifelong learning; promote professionalism and the profession;…
Conservation legacy engages future leaders who protect, restore, and enhance our nation's lands through community-based service.in 2024, conservation legacy engaged 2,524 participants who completed over 1.5 million service hours on public…
To conserve and steward the open lands and natural character of the headwaters of the colorado river in partnership with the local community.
The mission of the association is to inspire "deeper connection, better understanding, and enduring support for our public lands."
Bates is a college of the liberal arts and sciences, and is a coeducational, nonsectarian, residential college with special commitments to academic rigor, and to assuring in all of its efforts the dignity of each individual, and access to…
The mission of education commission of the states is to advocate for attaining educational excellence for all and to help state leaders identify, develop and implement public policy for education that addresses current and future needs of…
AIA Colorado,is the voice of the architecture profession in Colorado. Through advocacy, leadership development, education and resources for architects, the organization supports architecture professionals in designing a better world where…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Aspen Institute Inc and the most unlike its peers is Lowell Observatory. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 57 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
21 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 21 of the 35 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds ASPEN VALLEY LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds HIGH COUNTRY NEWS ↗
- Who funds LOWELL OBSERVATORY ↗
- Who funds THE GRAND CANYON TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds THE WILDERNESS LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds GEORGIA O'KEEFFE MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF THE SMITH COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds ST PAUL'S SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ASPEN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SANTA FE CONSERVATION TRUST ↗
- Who funds ASPEN CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES ↗
- Who funds THE COLORADO COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds SANTA FE PREPARATORY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds INDEPENDENCE PASS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds English in Action ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds The Art Base ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds THE ARTS CAMPUS AT WILLITS ↗
- Who funds ASPEN EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ROARING FORK CONSERVANCY ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Aspen Community Foundation · Brady Foundation · Colorado Gives Foundation · Aspen Business Center Foundation · The Austin Memorial Foundation · Alpenglow Foundation · Catto Shaw Foundation · Arches Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Kiryle Foundation · Ernst and Wilma Martens Foundation · The Flunison Fund
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Bf Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- The Trustees of the Smith College — 1% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Bf Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Bf Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.