· Private foundation
Merle Chambers Fund
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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of Merle Chambers Fund’s FY2025 grant dollars went to The Denver Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2024, the last year Merle Chambers Fund named its own grantees at scale: 86 organizations, $50M. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2019 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k37 grants · $68k
- $10k–50k35 grants · $778k
- $50k–250k96 grants · $8.8M
- $250k+25 grants · $41M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DENVER ART MUSEUM | $28,459,047 |
| DENVER ART MUSEUM | $3,000,000 |
| STATE LEADERSHIP PROJECT | $750,000 |
| CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY AND CIVIC LIF | $600,000 |
| THE DENVER FOUNDATION | $501,777 |
| DENVER ART MUSEUM | $500,000 |
| REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM FOR ALL FOUNDA | $500,000 |
| NEW VENTURE FUND | $500,000 |
| THE BELL POLICY CENTER | $500,000 |
| COMMUNITIES FOUNDATION OF OKLAHOMA | $500,000 |
| WYOMING COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $500,000 |
| CLEO PARKER ROBINSON DANCE | $500,000 |
| THE WOMEN'S FOUNDATION OF COLORADO | $350,000 |
| TIDES FOUNDATION | $350,000 |
| STATE VOICES | $350,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY19–24, $266k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 58% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Where the work is directed
The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.
About 55% of Merle Chambers Fund’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 62% of the giving stays in CO; by stated purpose, 22%.
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +29% since the first grant, against +25% for those funded once.
108 repeat relationships: 84 still active in FY2024, 24 since wound down; 18 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call). Read against FY2024, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.6M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- DADENVER ART MUSEUM5× · 2019–2024 · $33M · revenue +38% · 76% of their budget
- SLSTATE LEADERSHIP PROJECT3× · 2022–2024 · $2.5M · revenue +67%
- VRVOTER REGISTRATION PROJECT4× · 2020–2024 · $1.4M · revenue +35%
Funded once
- PPPlanned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountainsone grant, 2021 · $850k
MILE HIGH UNITED WAY INCone grant, 2020 · $151k · revenue -23%- TATHE ARCHER GROUPgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $100k · revenue +75%
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
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.
We connect people, ideas, and nonprofits to make good happen. our vision is that all of jeffco is thriving.
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 nonprofit association strengthens colorado's nonprofits through education, connection and advocacy.
The center for popular democracy (cpd) and its affiliates know that everyday people have the power to change the world. we upend business and politics as usual to forge a representative, multiracial government and society where we all…
Common future is a network of pioneering leaders across the u.s. and canada who work deeply within their communities to create alternative approaches to business, philanthropy, and investing. we envision an economy that has transitioned…
Advance workers rights & social justice through building sustained relationships and taking direct action to create concrete change in the lives of working families
Ethics watch uses high impact legal actions to hold public officials and organizations accountable for unethical activities that undermine the integrity of government in colorado. the organization accomplishes its mission by combining…
To advance the science of jurisprudence, secure the more efficient administration of justice, encourage the adoption of proper legislation, advocate thorough and continuing legal education, uphold the honor and integrity of the bar,…
Advancing the well-being of all coloradans through relationships free from abuse and oppression.
The mission of the center for legal inclusiveness (cli) is to advance diversity in the legal profession by actively educating and supporting private and public sector legal organizations in their individual campaigns to create cultures of…
The organization's mission is to leverage web-technologies to improve civic engagement and voter education.
How this is measured
158 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 158 of the 197 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds DENVER ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds STATE LEADERSHIP PROJECT ↗
- Who funds THE BELL POLICY CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE WOMEN'S FOUNDATION OF COLORADO INC ↗
- Who funds STATE VOICES ↗
- Who funds VOTER REGISTRATION PROJECT ↗
- Who funds MONTANA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY AND CIVIC LIFE ↗
- Who funds WYOMING COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITIES FOUNDATION OF OKLAHOMA ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR YOUTH ORGANIZING ↗
- Who funds COBALT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds POLITICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES INC ↗
- Who funds HOPEWELL FUND ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN PLANNED PARENTHOOD INC ↗
- Who funds TIDES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VOTEAMERICA ↗
- Who funds THE DENVER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WOMEN DONORS NETWORK ↗
- Who funds SUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PANORAMA GLOBAL ↗
- Who funds PROGRESSNOW COLORADO EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds Take Back The Court Foundation ↗
- Who funds Civic Nation ↗
- Who funds WINDWARD FUND ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE 19TH NEWS ↗
- Who funds New Era Colorado Foundation ↗
- Who funds COLORADO ORGANIZATION FOR LATINA OPPORTUNITY AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC BROADCASTING OF COLORADO INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY RESOURCE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds 9TO5 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF WORKING WOMEN INC ↗
- Who funds COLORADO FISCAL INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds MOMSRISING EDUCATION FUND ↗
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Rose Community Foundation · The Colorado Health Foundation · The Denver Foundation · Colorado Gives Foundation · Community Foundation Boulder County · Hopewell Fund · New Venture Fund · The Colorado Trust · Brett Family Foundation · The Women's Foundation of Colorado Inc · Caring for Colorado Foundation · Boettcher Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Merle Chambers Fund funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Merle Chambers Fund. Bigger dots raise more.
- President and Fellows of Harvard College: 7% of income from government
- Tools of the Mind: 0% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Merle Chambers Fund?
Find your warmest path to Merle Chambers 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.
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