· Private foundation
Ernst and Wilma Martens 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WILDERNESS WORKSHOP | $7,500 |
| ASPEN JOURNALISM | $5,000 |
| HOSPICE OF THE VALLEY | $5,000 |
| CHALLENGE ASPEN | $4,000 |
| ROARING FORK CONSERVANCY | $4,000 |
| SHINING STARS FOUNDATION | $4,000 |
| INDEPENDENCE PASS FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| WALDORF SCHOOL | $3,000 |
| FAMILY VISITOR PROGRAM | $3,000 |
| ENGLISH IN ACTION | $3,000 |
| MT SOPRIS NORDIC COUNCIL | $3,000 |
| CARBONDALE COMMUNITY NON-PROFIT CENTER | $2,000 |
| WINDWALKERS | $2,000 |
| BASALT EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| PREGNANCY RESOURCE CENTER | $2,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $99k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 0% of those 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.
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.
34 repeat relationships — 20 still active in FY2024, 14 since wound down; 2 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- WWWILDERNESS WORKSHOP8× · 2017–2024 · $60k · revenue +149%
- SSSHINING STARS FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $32k · revenue +95%
- CACHALLENGE ASPEN8× · 2017–2024 · $32k · revenue +52%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $4k
- RHResponse - Help for Survivors of Domestic Violence & Sexual Assaultgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $3k · revenue ×17
- ACASPEN CAMP FOR THE DEAFone grant, 2017 · $3k
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 aspen skiing company environment foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the enhancement and protection of the environmental quality of the roaring fork valley region. we support projects that promote environmental…
Protecting the open land and special places of the roaring fork and middle colorado river valleys for wildlife, agriculture, and community forever.
Provide adaptive sports for the disabled.
To enrich the roaring fork community through locally based curations of high caliber dance.
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,…
Promote the general interest of daily, weekly, and monthly newspapers and online publications, improve editorials and business methods of daily and weekly newspapers, and advance those newspapers' usefulness and influence in the public…
To empower visitors and locals to explore, learn about and protect the spectacular public lands of Southwest Colorado.
Rocky mountain wild works to protect, connect, and restore wildlife and wild lands in the southern rocky mountain region. we work to secure the biodiversity of the mountains, plains, and desert ecosystems of colorado, wyoming, utah, and…
Entertain, enlighten, enrich, educate and challenge the residents and visitors of the roaring fork valley through professional quality theatrical productions, new play development initiatives and a broad spectrum of educational programs.
To bring nationally and internationally recognized experts on a wide range of public policy issues to the Steamboat community. Seminars are free and open to the public.
To advance the public understanding of science through lifelong discovery, exploration and education.
To expand the potential of people with disabilities and special needs through meaningful, education and inspiring outdoor experiences.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Aspen Valley Skisnowboard Club Inc and the most unlike its peers is Pregnancy Resource Center Inc. 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 29 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 16% 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 8% 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.
20 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. 20 of the 39 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 WILDERNESS WORKSHOP ↗
- Who funds HOSPICE OF THE VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds SHINING STARS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHALLENGE ASPEN ↗
- Who funds Aspen Journalism ↗
- Who funds ROARING FORK CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds English in Action ↗
- Who funds INDEPENDENCE PASS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MOUNT SOPRIS NORDIC COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds CARBONDALE COMMUNITY NONPROFIT CENTER ↗
- Who funds ASPEN VALLEY SKISNOWBOARD CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds Pathfinders ↗
- Who funds THE BUDDY PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds ASPEN FILM ↗
- Who funds BASALT EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds The Art Base ↗
- Who funds WINDWALKERS EQUINE ASSISTED LEARNING AND ↗
- Who funds CARBONDALE CLAY CENTER ↗
- Who funds Response - Help for Survivors of Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault ↗
- Who funds Pregnancy Resource Center 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: Colorado Gives Foundation · Aspen Community Foundation · Brady Foundation · Aspen Business Center Foundation · Arches Foundation · Rose Community Foundation · The Thrift Shop · Alpenglow Foundation · The Thendara Foundation · Fred and Elli Iselin Foundation · Castaways 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 Ernst and Wilma Martens 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.
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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.