· Public charity
Colorado Bar Foundation
To promote & advance the jurisprudence system and administration of justice in the state of colorado through education, scientific research, & the dissemination of education information to practicing attorneys in the state of colorado and to the members of the general public.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 22 grants below total $223,946 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $396,996 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $173,050 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k19 grants · $127k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $97k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COLORADO LAWYER TRUST ACCOUNT FOUNDATION | $40,000 |
| COLORADO ACCESS TO JUSTICE COMMISSION | $36,000 |
| COLORADO BAR ASSOCIATION | $20,500 |
| ROCKY MOUNTAIN IMMIGRANT ADVOCACY NETWORK (RMIAN) | $9,000 |
| ROCKY MOUNTAIN VETERANS ADVOCACY PROJECT | $8,000 |
| BETTER TOMORROW | $8,000 |
| FORGE EVOLUTION | $7,500 |
| CHILDRENS ADVOCACY CENTER FOR THE PIKES PEAK REGION | $7,500 |
| CROSSROADS SAFEHOUSE INC | $7,500 |
| BRIGHT FUTURE FOUNDATION FOR EAGLE COUNTY | $7,500 |
| TRI-COUNTY HEALTH NETWORK | $7,000 |
| ADVOCATES OF LAKE COUNTY INC | $6,696 |
| FAMILY TREE INC | $6,500 |
| COLORADO POVERTY LAW PROJECT | $6,000 |
| REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO | $6,000 |
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, $55k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 73% 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.
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 +15% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 11 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, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $69k 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
- CLColorado Lawyer Trust Account Foundation5× · 2020–2025 · $175k · revenue +398%
- CBCOLORADO BAR ASSOCIATION4× · 2020–2025 · $49k · revenue +3%
- FEForge Evolution4× · 2021–2025 · $26k · revenue +124%
Funded once
- LSLaw SchoolYes We Canone grant, 2024 · $8k · revenue 0%
- LELEGAL ENTREPRENEURS FOR JUSTICEone grant, 2021 · $7k · revenue 0%
- CCCOLORADO CAMPAIGN FOR INCLUSIVE EXCELLENCEone grant, 2024 · $5k · revenue 0%
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 provide legal assistance and increase opportunities for children and other disadvantaged communities through advocacy, negotiation and litigation. Volunteer attorneys dedicate time to improve the quality of life for these causes while…
Justice for the People Legal Centers mission shall include but not be limited to the provision of legal services, grassroots organizing, and education to people and communities who have historically endured harm and trauma caused by our…
Colorado center on law and policy is an antipoverty organization advancing the rights of every coloradan.
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.
Solicits, receives, and distributes funds in cooperation with the Colorado Legal Services program, which provides civil legal aid to low-income persons.
To advocate for social justice for people with all types of disabilities.
To provide direct pro-bono legal services for eligible patients at salud family health centers throughout central and northern front range communities.
Colorado Civil Justice League is an advocacy organization established to foster a balanced and efficient civil justice system for the benefit of all.
At Environmental and Animal Defense, our mission is to provide Colorado with access to affordable legal services for environmental and animal issues, in addition to protecting wildlife and their habitats through enforcement of the law. No…
Court-appointed trained volunteers advocate in court for the best interest of children who are victims of abuse and neglect in the 5th judicial district of colorado in order to find them safe and permanent homes.
Ensuring excellence in juvenile defense
Colorado people's alliance (copa) is a racial justice, member-driven organization dedicated to advancing and winning progressive social change locally, statewide and nationally. copa builds power to improve the lives of all coloradans…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Rocky Mountain Victim Law Center and the most unlike its peers is Forge Evolution. 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 25 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) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 12% 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.
27 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. 27 of the 30 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 Colorado Lawyer Trust Account Foundation ↗
- Who funds COLORADO ACCESS TO JUSTICE COMMISSION ↗
- Who funds COLORADO BAR ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Forge Evolution ↗
- Who funds CROSSROADS SAFEHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds TRI-COUNTY HEALTH NETWORK ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN IMMIGRANT ADVOCACY NETWORK ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER FOR THE PIKES PEAK REGION INC ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN VETERANS ADVOCACY PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds ADVOCATES OF LAKE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds COMPANEROS FOUR CORNERS IMMIGRANT RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN LEGAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds BETTER TOMORROW ↗
- Who funds BRIGHT FUTURE FOUNDATION FOR EAGLE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds Law SchoolYes We Can ↗
- Who funds LEGAL ENTREPRENEURS FOR JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds FAMILY TREE INC ↗
- Who funds THE FAMILY RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds A WOMAN'S PLACE INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds COLORADO POVERTY LAW PROJECT ↗
- Who funds PROJECT SAFEGUARD ↗
- Who funds Court Care for the Pikes Peak Region Inc ↗
- Who funds COLORADO CHILD ADVOCACY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds IMMIGRANT LEGAL CENTER OF BOULDER COUNTY ↗
- Who funds COLORADO CAMPAIGN FOR INCLUSIVE EXCELLENCE ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN VICTIM LAW CENTER ↗
- Who funds HISPANIC AFFAIRS PROJECT ↗
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 · Anschutz Family Foundation · The Colorado Health Foundation · El Pomar Foundation · The Denver Foundation · Mile High United Way Inc · Rocky Mountain Health Foundation · Rose Community Foundation · Latino Community Foundation of Colorado Inc · The Women's Foundation of Colorado Inc · Boettcher Foundation · The Colorado Trust
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 Colorado Bar 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.