· Public charity
Colorado Schools Fund
The organization's mission is to support new, outstanding public schools that meet the needs of historically underserved children and aspirations of families across colorado.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k2 grants · $50k
- $50k–250k10 grants · $1.4M
- $250k+3 grants · $2.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LEGACY INSTITUTE | $1,200,000 |
| DSST PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION | $465,000 |
| ROCKY MOUNTAIN PREP | $315,000 |
| WILDFLOWER MONTESSORI PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF COLORADO | $200,000 |
| JAMES IRWIN CHARTER SCHOOLS | $200,000 |
| UNIVERSITY PREPARATORY SCHOOLS | $190,000 |
| HIGH ROCKIES COMMUNITY SCHOOL | $150,000 |
| KIPP COLORADO SCHOOLS | $135,000 |
| ATLAS PREPARATORY SCHOOL INC | $135,000 |
| FAITHBRIDGE | $100,000 |
| BAL SWAN DEMONSTRATION SCHOOL DBA GROVE ELEMENTARY AT BAL SWAN | $100,000 |
| GOODWILL OF COLORADO | $100,000 |
| LATINO EDUCATOR ADVANCING LEADERSHIP | $80,000 |
| CONEJOS COUNTY CLEAN WATER INC | $25,000 |
| UTE MOUNTAIN UTE TRIBE DBA KWIYAGAT COMMUNITY ACADEMY | $25,000 |
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 (FY24–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 39% 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.
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.
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.
Ascend College Prep is a public high school for 10-12th grade students in Colorado Springs and the surrounding area. Our Mission is to "Prepare and inspire students to become lifelong learners and responsible citizens through rigorous…
Provide education for students in Pre-K through 8th grade, benefitting approximately 415 students.
Empower students to design and lead their own postsecondary and career pathways with the context of an exciting Science, Technology, Environmental, Agricultural and System Design thinking learning environment.
To provide a revolutionary learning experience for children grades K through 8.
Charter school to provide education to students in grades K-12.
The mission of New Legacy Charter School is to provide parenting students with the skills needed to raise healthy children and to engage all students in personalized projects and experiences that develop college and career awareness and…
The Organization is a public charter school specializing in education of students from preschool through 8th grade. The School uses a standards based curriculum incorporating the Colorade state standards, the Core Knowledge and sequence,…
To educate and provide all scholars the opportunities and supports to acquire and apply knowledge and skills so that they are prepared for continued success in the high schools, and therefore the colleges and universities of their choice.
GOAL Academy is an alternative education online blended high school serving students across the state of Colorado. GOAL's mission statement is "to develop productive members of society". GOAL's vision statement is "to help all students…
To create transformative learning experiences that empower a diverse community of students to lead lives of intellectual curiosity, personal integrity, and compassionate contribution to a more just world.
The mission of Fort Collins Montessori School is to provide a classic pre/k-6th grade Montessori program that inspires and empowers children with an exceptional educational experience based on the principles and philosophy of Dr. Maria…
Provide a content rich, academically rigorous education with a well-defined sequential curriculum in a safe, orderly caring environment.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Strive Preparatory Schools and the most unlike its peers is Conejos County Clean Water Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 15 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 THE LEGACY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds DSST PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Strive Preparatory Schools ↗
- Who funds James Irwin Charter Schools ↗
- Who funds Wildflower Montessori Public Schools of Colorado ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY PREPARATORY SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds High Rockies Community School ↗
- Who funds Atlas Preparatory School Inc ↗
- Who funds KIPP Colorado Schools ↗
- Who funds FaithBridge ↗
- Who funds Goodwill of Colorado ↗
- Who funds Bal Swan Demonstration School ↗
- Who funds Latino Educators Advancing Leadership (LEAL) ↗
- Who funds CONEJOS COUNTY CLEAN WATER INC ↗
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: Charter Fund Inc D/B/A Charter School Growth Fund · Daniels Fund · Gates Family Foundation · Colorado League of Charter Schools · Rooted · Louis Calder Foundation · Temple Hoyne Buell Foundation · Rose Community Foundation · The Colorado Health Foundation · The Denver Foundation · Denver Families for Public Schools · Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Colorado
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 Schools Fund 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Colorado Schools Fund?
Find your warmest path to Colorado Schools Fund 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.