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Foundation Dossiers

Colorado · Private foundation

Step Foundation

Its FY2021 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$3k
Granted FY2020
1
Grants FY2020
1
Organizations funded FY2020
0%
First-time grantees FY2020
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2020
$3,000
Largest grant, FY2020
$3,000
Organizations funded a year
1 to 2
FY2017 to FY2020
States reached, FY2020
1
Total assets, FY2020
$60k
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2020, 0% of the organizations Step Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 0% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2020, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’18’20
RenewedFirst-time

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

’18’20
ReligionOther
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
FY20201$3k0%
FY20182$4k100%
FY20171$1kn/a
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2020.

Education$5kHuman Services$3k

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2020, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
Sja Foundation$5001n/a

Plus 2 recipients with no EIN on record ($7k), not named here.

Compare Step Foundation with peer funders

About Step Foundation

How much does Step Foundation give?
Step Foundation reported 1 grants totaling $3,000 in its FY2020 IRS filing. It funded between 1 and 2 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2020.
What does Step Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2020, its largest causes are Education (60%), Human Services (40%).
Who are Step Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2020: Sja Foundation ($500).
Does Step Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2020, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Step 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.
Where is Step Foundation based?
Step 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 3 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 2020, released 2020. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2021) is on record and reports no grant expense, so the figures above are from FY2020, the most recent year this funder made grants.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Step’s filings →

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 endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home