· Private foundation
Big Blue Sky 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 $10k20 grants · $57k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $40k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $200k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL COLORADO FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| UCLA FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| SANFORD BURNHAM PREBYS | $10,000 |
| JAZZ ASPEN - SNOWMASS | $10,000 |
| ANDERSON RANCH ARTS CENTER | $10,000 |
| LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE | $10,000 |
| BEST BUDDIES | $7,000 |
| WARRIORS & QUIET WATERS FOUNDATION INC | $5,000 |
| GREENPEACE FUND INC | $5,000 |
| THE BUDDY PROGRAM | $5,000 |
| A WAY OUT | $5,000 |
| CLEAN WATER FUND | $5,000 |
| HELP US ADOPT | $5,000 |
| ASPEN OUT | $3,000 |
| ASPEN VALLEY HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
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 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 37% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
42 repeat relationships — 20 still active in FY2024, 22 since wound down; 5 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $18k 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
- CHChildren's Hospital Colorado Foundation5× · 2017–2024 · $450k · revenue +42%
- AHASPEN HOPE CENTER3× · 2019–2021 · $200k · revenue +76%
- AVASPEN VALLEY SKISNOWBOARD CLUB INC4× · 2017–2021 · $115k · revenue +84%
Funded once
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $100k · revenue 0%- AAVSCone grant, 2023 · $15k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $10k
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.
To support educational, research and public functions and programs of the riverside campus of the university of california.
The mission of the uc davis foundation is to secure, steward and manage private gifts for uc davis.
The uc santa barbara foundation actively works to further the goals of the university of california, santa barbara. the foundation seeks to maintain and nurture the university's quality and distinction. on behalf of the campus, the…
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…
The mission of the silicon schools fund is to improve education through supporting the launch of excellent new schools, improving academic instruction in existing schools, and by funding some of the boldest innovations in education…
The association serves its members by creating resources that enable california school administrators to develop and apply creative leadership and management skills and in turn, improve the educational process for all students.
Protecting the open land and special places of the roaring fork and middle colorado river valleys for wildlife, agriculture, and community forever.
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
The Sierra Fund (TSF) is a non-profit organization with a mission to restore ecosystem and community resiliency in the Sierra Nevada.
See schedule o colorado state university foundation assists in the promotion, development, and enhancement of facilities and educational programs and enhancements of faculty, students, and alumni of colorado state university (csu). this is…
The san diego foundation inspires enduring philanthropy and enables community solutions to improve the quality of life in our region.
United states skiing foundation is engaged in not-for-profit membership, competition, training, development, and educational activities related to amateur skiers and snowboarders who are, or aspire to become, members of the u.s. ski and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Uc San Diego Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 35 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) — 2% 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.
45 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. 45 of the 63 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 Children's Hospital Colorado Foundation ↗
- Who funds UCLA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ASPEN HOPE CENTER ↗
- Who funds ASPEN VALLEY SKISNOWBOARD CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds ASPEN EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SANFORD BURNHAM PREBYS MEDICAL DISCOVERY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds TROUT UNLIMITED INC ↗
- Who funds JAZZ AT ASPEN-SNOWMASS ↗
- Who funds CLEAN WATER FUND ↗
- Who funds THEATER & ARTS FOUNDATION OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY DBA LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE ↗
- Who funds WARRIORS & QUIET WATERS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ANDERSON RANCH ARTS CENTER ↗
- Who funds GREENPEACE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds ASPEN VALLEY HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds ASPEN YOUTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE BUDDY PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds RIVER BRIDGE REGIONAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds UC SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HELPUSADOPTORG INC ↗
- Who funds ASPEN SWIM CLUB ↗
- Who funds Lucky Day Animal Rescue of Colorado ↗
- Who funds COMPUTERS 2 SD KIDS ↗
- Who funds TREEPEOPLE INC ↗
- Who funds THE SURFRIDER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE ARMORY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THEATRE ASPEN ↗
- Who funds Best Buddies International Inc ↗
- Who funds DELTA DELTA DELTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MARSHALL DIRECT FUND ↗
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 · Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego · Castaways Foundation · Colorado Gives Foundation · The Thrift Shop · Arches Foundation · Robins Foundation · El Pomar Foundation · Greater Houston Community Foundation · Michael S Rosen Foundation · Freedman Family Foundation · Steven & Kiki Esrick Dream Foundation Inc
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 Big Blue Sky 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.
- Northeastern University — 7% of income from government
- Best Buddies International Inc — 4% 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.