· Private foundation
Mary Elizabeth Bates Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k40 grants · $186k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $95k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Humane Colorado | $39,500 |
| Ark Valley Humane Society-Sunshine Shelter | $12,200 |
| Larimer Humane Society | $12,000 |
| Upper Rio Grande Animal SocietyConour Shelter | $10,700 |
| Teller County Regional Animal Center | $10,500 |
| Humane Society Pikes Peak Region | $10,400 |
| Humane Society Pagosa Springs | $9,900 |
| Humane Society South Platte Valley | $9,900 |
| Hamlett Spay & Neuter Clinic Inc | $8,800 |
| Foothills Animal Shelter | $8,800 |
| Freedom Service Dogs | $8,500 |
| Montrose Animal Protective Agency | $8,500 |
| Second Chance Humane Society Ridgeway | $8,125 |
| Longmont Humane Society | $8,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $7,150 |
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 (FY17–25, $151k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% 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 +31% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
52 repeat relationships — 45 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down; 1 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, 99% 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
- DDDENVER DUMB FRIENDS LEAGUE9× · 2017–2025 · $311k · revenue +254%
- NHNoco Humane9× · 2017–2025 · $78k · revenue +138%
- TCTELLER COUNTY REGIONAL ANIMAL SHELT9× · 2017–2025 · $78k · revenue +36%
Funded once
- MEMary E Bates Trustone grant, 2023 · $58k
- DMDr Mary E Bates Trustone grant, 2021 · $35k
- DBDR BATES TRUSTone grant, 2022 · $34k
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 help injured, abandoned and unwanted animals. We provide food, vet care that includes heartworm prevention and spay or neuter services, shelter and anything else needed.
The mission is to protect and care for homeless animals in the Dillon and Beaverhead county area.
For our community we provide high quality low cost spay and neuter services as well as low cost vaccinations. we do have programs that allows us to help the families that have pets but are in financial strain and not able to have their…
Animal Rescue - finding homes for abandoned animals in Granite City, spaying and neutering stray animals and feral cats
The mission of Operation Pawpulation is to offer support and resources, including low-cost and no-cost spay/neuter, vaccinations and microchips in order to save lives by reducing the number of homeless pets in our community. Spaying and…
Our mission is to move adoptable dogs and cats primarily from heavily-burdened areas to loving homes. We work with trusted partners throughout the country and around the world and facilitate vet care, transport, and adoptions to help…
Find homes for homeless/abandoned dogs. Provide full vet car and housing while awaiting adoption,
We rescue dogs and cats from high kill and high volume shelters, as well as intake local animals in need, transport them (if needed) to Colorado, house them in foster homes while we provide all required veterinary services, including…
Dog Rescue Dogs Unbroken supports Colorado dogs at higher risk for euthanasia evaluating their behavioral stability and applying training methods appropriate for their needs. The goal of helping each dog learn to make good choices in…
Decrease over population of feral cats by trapping and doing spay or neuter. Provide veterinarian care to kittens. Take owner relinquishments of pets they can no longer care for. Taking in abandoned animals and providing veterinary care.…
Animal Rescue
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Maxfund Inc and the most unlike its peers is National Mill Dog Rescue. 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 24 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 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.
31 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. 31 of the 62 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 DENVER DUMB FRIENDS LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds Noco Humane ↗
- Who funds TELLER COUNTY REGIONAL ANIMAL SHELT ↗
- Who funds UPPER RIO GRANDE ANIMAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds PARAGON SERVICE DOGS ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM SERVICE DOGS INC ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF PAGOSA SPRINGS ↗
- Who funds Hamlett Spay & Neuter Clinic Inc ↗
- Who funds LONGMONT HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds THE MAXFUND INC ↗
- Who funds Montrose Animal Protection Agency ↗
- Who funds INTER-MOUNTAIN HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Southern Colorado Spay & Neuter Association ↗
- Who funds Morgan Humane Society ↗
- Who funds EVERGREEN ANIMAL PROTECTIVE LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds National Mill Dog Rescue ↗
- Who funds EAGLE VALLEY HUMANE SOCIETY A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds ALMOST HOME ADOPTIONS ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL RESCUE OF THE ROCKIES ↗
- Who funds FELINE RESCUE NETWORK ↗
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 · Dr Mary Bates Trust Fund · Animal Assistance Foundation · El Pomar Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · Lucile Drinkwater Allen Trust · Alice Jenkins Foundation · Corrales Friends of Animals Foundation Dba Dennis Friends Foundation · Petsmart Charities Inc · Otter Cares Foundation AKA OTTERCARES FOUNDATION · Petco Love · BISSELL Pet 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 Mary Elizabeth Bates 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Mary Elizabeth Bates Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Mary Elizabeth Bates Foundation 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.