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Colorado · Private foundation

Saponas Foundation

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.

$78k
Granted FY2024(still arriving)
21
Itemized grants FY2024
20
Organizations funded FY2023
10%
First-time grantees FY2023
Read the full brief
Itemized, FY2024
$69k
The rest is grants the schedule does not break out
Median grant, FY2024
$1,000
Largest grant, FY2024
$31,500
Organizations funded a year
19 to 24
FY2020 to FY2023
States reached, FY2024
2
Total assets, FY2024
$1.4M
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2023, 10% of the organizations Saponas Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 3% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.

50%100%’22’23
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’22’23
Civil RightsInternationalHuman ServicesOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2024still arriving21$69k0%
FY202320$67k10%
FY202219$68k21%
FY202024$63kn/a
94% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Education$122kHousing & Shelter$55kHuman Services$28kYouth Development$13kArts & Culture$11kAnimals$8kCivil Rights$7kHealth$7kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2020 to FY2024, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Show all 21 grantees

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 9 recipients with no EIN on record ($23k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget Saponas Foundation supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetUniversity of Colorado Foundation: $122,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetPikes Peak Habitat for Humanity: $27,000 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetThe Place: $26,000 over 4y, 0.2% of budgetThe Springs Rescue Mission: $9,500 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetInside Out Youth Services: $8,500 over 4y, 0.2% of budgetTrails and Open Space Coalition: $7,000 over 3y, 0.5% of budgetThe Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration: $4,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetSafe Harbor Lab Rescue: $4,000 over 4y, 0.3% of budgetTessa: $4,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetWestside Cares Inc: $4,000 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetEastern Plains Community Pantry Fou: $4,000 over 4y, 1.1% of budgetNational Mill Dog Rescue: $4,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetMercy's Gate: $3,500 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetRock Ledge Ranch Living History: $3,000 over 4y, 0.8% of budgetColorado Springs World Affairs Council: $2,750 over 3y, 0.6% of budgetCHRISTIAN HEALING NETWORK dba Mission Medical Center: $2,000 over 2y, 0.6% of budgetColorado Springs Child Nursery Centers Inc: $2,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetPartners in Housing Inc: $1,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetForge Evolution: $500 over 1y, 0.2% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 19.

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.

El Pomar FoundationCO35.5× affinity15 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: El Pomar Foundation · Pikes Peak Community Foundation · Colorado Springs Health Foundation · The Joseph Henry Edmondson Foundation · Pikes Peak United Way · INDYGIVE DBA Give Pikes Peak · Colorado Gives Foundation · The Marson Foundation · The Myron Stratton Home · Carl W & Carrie Mae Joslyn Charitable Trust · T Rowe Price Foundation · Mile High United Way Inc

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare Saponas Foundation with peer funders

About Saponas Foundation

How much does Saponas Foundation give?
Saponas Foundation reported 21 itemized grants totaling $68,700, out of $78,200 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 19 and 24 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2023.
What does Saponas Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2024, its largest causes are Education (28%), Housing & Shelter (12%), Human Services (6%).
Who are Saponas Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2020 to FY2024: University of Colorado Foundation ($122k), Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity ($27k), The Place ($26k).
Does Saponas Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2023, 10% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Saponas Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as Saponas Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include El Pomar Foundation, Pikes Peak Community Foundation, Colorado Springs Health Foundation.
Where is Saponas Foundation based?
Saponas Foundation is based in CO.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 30 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record and reports $88k of grant expense with no grantee named in the published copy. A private foundation itemizes every grant it makes, so a return carrying none has filed its list as an attachment that the public copy does not include. The figures above are therefore from FY2024, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

Source object · view filing

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