· Private foundation
Bruce Benson Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k8 grants · $27k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $100k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $475k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ADVANCE COLORADO | $200,000 |
| THE STEAMBOAT INSTITUTE | $100,000 |
| COLORADO ACADEMY | $100,000 |
| LEADERSHIP PROGRAM OF THE ROCKIES | $75,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO | $40,000 |
| DENVER POLICE FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| DENVER ZOO CONSERVATION ALLIANCE | $10,000 |
| BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA | $10,000 |
| DENVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| FOOD BANK OF THE ROCKIES | $10,000 |
| TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB | $5,000 |
| INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE | $5,000 |
| COMMON SENSE INSTITUTE | $5,000 |
| STEP DENVER | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY20–25, $31k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 92% of those 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 +30% since the first grant, against +11% for the ones you funded once.
25 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $46k 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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION2× · 2019–2023 · $1.2M · revenue +58%
- TSTHE STEAMBOAT INSTITUTE5× · 2020–2025 · $250k · revenue +296%
- CACOLORADO ACADEMY2× · 2022–2025 · $200k · revenue +23%
Funded once
- FOFRIENDS OF THE NATIONAL WESTERNone grant, 2021 · $25k
- CCOone grant, 2023 · $25k
CAPE ELEUTHERA FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2024 · $25k · revenue +154%
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.
We connect people, ideas, and nonprofits to make good happen. our vision is that all of jeffco is thriving.
To provide meaningful access to high quality, civil legal services in the pursuit of justice for as many low income persons and members of vulnerable populations throughout colorado as possible.
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…
Colorado center on law and policy is an antipoverty organization advancing the rights of every coloradan.
To provide timely, credible and accessible analyses of fiscal and economic issues facing colorado to inform public policy debates and promote economic prosperity
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…
Be a catalyst! Ignite our community's passion for nature and science.
Our mission is to empower colorado students to achieve a lifetime of economic understanding and financial freedom. how will we achieve this mission? by providing economic and personal financial education to students through training…
The vision of the csfc is to partner with the fire service and supplier partners across the state of colorado in their efforts to protect all of colorado's life and property from fire and other disasters. it is a dynamic organization,…
To inspire people and mobilize resources to strengthen our community.
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…
Philanthropy colorado is a nonprofit membership association for grantmakers throughout the state. its mission is strengthen colorado communities by bringing people, information and resources together.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Denver Rescue Mission and the most unlike its peers is Samaritan's Purse. 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 33 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% 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 14% 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.
24 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. 24 of the 46 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 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ADVANCE COLORADO ↗
- Who funds THE STEAMBOAT INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Leadership Program of the Rockies ↗
- Who funds COLORADO ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Children's Hospital Colorado Foundation ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF THE ROCKIES ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds DENVER ZOOLOGICAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DENVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CAPE ELEUTHERA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GOLD CROWN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DENVER POLICE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds DENVER RESCUE MISSION ↗
- Who funds COMMON SENSE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Step Denver ↗
- Who funds JUDI'S HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT-ROCKY MOUNTAIN INC ↗
- Who funds THE COMMIT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PARENTS CHALLENGE ↗
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: Colorado Gives Foundation · Pema Foundation Inc · Daniels Fund · El Pomar Foundation · Adolph Coors Foundation · The Denver Foundation · Koelbel Family Foundation · The Anschutz Foundation · The Armstrong Family Foundation · Western Union Foundation · Amg Charitable Gift Foundation · Eze Foundation
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 Bruce Benson 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.
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.