Skip to content
Plinth
Foundation Dossiers
Plinth

· Private foundation

Schuster Family Foundation

Its FY2022 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$72k
Granted FY2019
21
Grants FY2019
1
States reached
$5k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your fieldRead
01What you fund
01FY2019 · 21 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

$3,400
Median grant
1
States reached
$0
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
TRUE NORTH YOUTH PROGRAM$5,000
VOICES CARRY ADVOCACY CENTER$5,000
COLORADO YOUTH FOR A CHANGE$5,000
CASA OF LARIMER COUNTY$5,000
PC'S FOR PEOPLE$4,500
EXPAND BEYOND$4,000
ENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING FOR KIDS ELK$4,000
YOUTHROOTS$4,000
COOL SCIENCE$4,000
COLORADO YOUTH OUTDOORS$4,000
ADAPTIVE ADVENTURES$3,400
PLAYWORKS$3,000
IGNITE ADAPTIVE SPORTS$3,000
ADAPTIVE SPORTS ASSOCIATION$3,000
BOULDER COMMUNITY HOUSING$2,500
02The need
02

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY19–19, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 7%ASPIRE 3D: $2k → 11%IGNITE ADAPTIVE SPORTS: $3k → 12%PC'S FOR PEOPLE: $5k → 12%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your field

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.

1
Year One Inc

The mission of mile high youth corps is to help youth make a difference in themselves and their community through meaningful service opportunities and educational experiences.

Youth Development
2
Colorado Learning Connections

Through individualized learning and responsive mentoring, we inspire, guide and empower students and families.

Education
3
Rocky Mountain Youth Corps

Rocky mountain youth corps engages young people in the outdoors, inspiring them to use their strengths and potential to lead healthy, productive lives. we teach responsibility for self, community, and environment through teamwork, service,…

Youth Development
4
Colorado Outward Bound School

Colorado outward bound school changes lives through challenge and discovery.

Environment
5
Activate Work Inc

We provide training, coaching, community supports and access to leading colorado employers enabling coloradans to acheive economic security, mobility and prosperity.

Human Services
6
Elevating Connections

Elevating Connections is dedicated to building sustained positive relationships for current & former youth in foster care-including those experiencing sibling separation-to find their voice & build meaningful community connections.

Youth Development
7
ElevateHER

Elevateher's mission is to foster self-worth and grit in young women through mentoring, outdoor adventure, and holistic wellness programs.

Youth Development
8
Colorado Discover Ability

Provide adaptive sports for the disabled.

Recreation & Sports
9
Ouray County Schools Community Resource Consortium Inc

To inspire Ouray County youth to lead healthy lives. We work in partnership with local schools and community partners to create enriching programs, provide leadership opportunities and build youth's strengths that support their wellbeing…

Human Services
10
Team Summit

Team summit is a youth development organization empowering our athletes to realize and celebrate their personal podiums through athletics, education and life skills by participating in innovative programming at our world class venues.

Recreation & Sports
11
Teens Inc

Teens, inc. supports, educates, and empowers youth and their families to make healthy choices and thrive.

Youth Development
12
Sos Outreach

Sos outreach changes young lives, building character and leadership in underserved kids through mentoring outdoors.

Recreation & Sports

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Colorado Young Leaders and the most unlike its peers is Boulder Community Housing Corporation Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

03the grantee network

18 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. 18 of the 21 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
9
Early backer (in before they grew)
18/18
Grantees still filing
16/18
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATE INC — $5,000 · OtherCOURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATE INCEXPAND BEYOND INC — $4,000 · OtherEXPAND BEYOND INCADAPTIVE SPORTS ASSOCIATION — $3,000 · OtherADAPTIVE SPORTS ASSOCIATIONPLAYWORKS — $3,000 · OtherPLAYWORKSHIGHER GROUND YOUTH CHALLENGE — $2,500 · OtherHIGHER GROUND YOUTH CHALLENGEENERGY OUTREACH COLORADO — $2,500 · OtherENERGY OUTREACH COLORADOBoulder Community Housing Corporation Inc — $2,500 · OtherBoulder Community Housing Corporation…THE DENVER HOMELESS VOICE — $1,500 · OtherTHE DENVER HOMELESS VOICECOLORADO YOUTH FOR A CHANGE — $5,000 · Youth DevelopmentCOLORADO YOUTH FOR A CHAN…TRUE NORTH YOUTH PROGRAM — $5,000 · Youth DevelopmentTRUE NORTH YOUTH PROGRAMENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING FOR KIDS — $4,000 · Youth DevelopmentENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING FO…COLORADO YOUNG LEADERS — $2,500 · Youth DevelopmentCOLORADO YOUNG LEADERSPCS FOR PEOPLE — $4,500 · Human ServicesPCS FOR PEOPLEIGNITE ADAPTIVE SPORTS — $3,000 · Human ServicesIGNITE ADAPTIV…ASPIRE 3D — $2,000 · Human ServicesASPIRE 3DCOOL SCIENCE — $4,000 · EducationCOOL SCIENCEYOUTHROOTS — $4,000 · EducationYOUTHROOTSCOLORADO YOUTH OUTDOORS CHARITABLE TRUST — $4,000 · EnvironmentCOLORADO …ASPEN CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES — $2,000 · EnvironmentASPEN CEN…THE CRAWFORD CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER — $5,000 · Crime & LegalAdaptive Adventures — $3,400 · Health
Other$24,000Youth Development$16,500Human Services$9,500Education$8,000Environment$6,000Crime & Legal$5,000Health$3,400

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetCOLORADO YOUTH FOR A CHANGE — $5,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetTHE CRAWFORD CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER — $5,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetTRUE NORTH YOUTH PROGRAM — $5,000 over 1y, 2.7% of budgetCOURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATE INC — $5,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING FOR KIDS — $4,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetCOLORADO YOUTH OUTDOORS CHARITABLE TRUST — $4,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetYOUTHROOTS — $4,000 over 1y, 1.4% of budgetENERGY OUTREACH COLORADO — $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetHIGHER GROUND YOUTH CHALLENGE — $2,500 over 1y, 5.8% of budgetCOLORADO YOUNG LEADERS — $2,500 over 1y, 1.2% of budgetASPEN CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES — $2,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE DENVER HOMELESS VOICE — $1,500 over 1y, 1.2% of budget
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.

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.

Colorado Gives Founda…The Denver FoundationAnschutz Family Found…Rose Community Founda…Nathan B & Florence R…Community Foundation …Otter Cares Foundatio…El Pomar FoundationThe Colorado Health F…Union Pacific Foundat…Mile High United Way …The Ajl Charitable Fo…
Colorado Gives FoundationCO31.3× affinity14 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Colorado Gives Foundation · The Denver Foundation · Anschutz Family Foundation · Rose Community Foundation · Nathan B & Florence R Burt Foundation · Community Foundation of Northern Colorado · Otter Cares Foundation AKA OTTERCARES FOUNDATION · El Pomar Foundation · The Colorado Health Foundation · Union Pacific Foundation · Mile High United Way Inc · The Ajl Charitable 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 Schuster Family 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.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%your share of their income ↑0%19%38%56%75%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    10report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25

    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 21 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2019, released 2019. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2022) is on record and reports no grant expense, so the figures above are from FY2019, the most recent year this funder made grants.

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home
    State money flows
    the interactive map of money crossing state lines