· Private foundation
The Buettner Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k32 grants · $50k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $25k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $55k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Shedd Aquarium | $55,000 |
| Colorado Springs Philharmonic | $15,000 |
| Colorado Springs Youth Symphony | $10,000 |
| Epic | $6,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF THE ROCKY MTNS | $5,000 |
| Gazette El Pomar Empty Stocking Fund | $4,000 |
| PIKES PEAK UNITED WAY | $4,000 |
| CARE AND SHARE | $3,000 |
| KCME | $2,000 |
| WORLD FOOD PROGRAM | $2,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $2,000 |
| ASPEN SANTA FE BALLET | $2,000 |
| GRALAND COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL | $2,000 |
| ROCKY MOUNTAIN PBS | $1,500 |
| CASA of the Pikes Peak Region | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $17k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 67% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +55% since the first grant, against +8% for the ones you funded once.
58 repeat relationships — 30 still active in FY2024, 28 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k 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
- SASHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY5× · 2017–2024 · $123k · revenue +67%
- CSColorado Springs Philharmonic Orchestra3× · 2017–2019 · $105k · revenue +5%
- GCGRALAND COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL8× · 2017–2024 · $35k · revenue +42%
Funded once
- FAFine Arts Center - Curtain Call Societyone grant, 2019 · $3k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $2k
- CSCOLORADO SPRINGS PIONEERS MUSEUMgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $1k · revenue +80%
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.
Be a catalyst! Ignite our community's passion for nature and science.
Rocky mountain wild works to protect, connect, and restore wildlife and wild lands in the southern rocky mountain region. we work to secure the biodiversity of the mountains, plains, and desert ecosystems of colorado, wyoming, utah, and…
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…
To deliver meaningful news, music, and cultural experiences to everyone in colorado using the power of the human voice in all its forms
To inspire a passionate community to forge an enduring legacy now and for future generations. this mission is attained by building a community endowment, helping donors address community needs and providing philanthropic leadership.
To raise funds and acquire assets, both real and personal, that will provide financial assistance to the Colorado Springs Philharmonic Orchestra.
Providing entertainment and education through the production of high-quality orchestral music.
Colorado Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau's, now doing business as Visit Colorado Springs (VCOS), primary exempt purpose is promotion of the Pikes Peak Region. VCOS is designed to stimulate the visitor industry in the Pikes Peak…
The colorado symphony association (csa) is a not-for-profit organization established to fund and operate the colorado symphony orchestra for the enjoyment and benefit of the citizens of metropolitan denver and (cont'd on schedule…
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.
Protecting the open land and special places of the roaring fork and middle colorado river valleys for wildlife, agriculture, and community forever.
The mission of the boulder philharmonic orchestra is to enrich connections and communities through the power of orchestral music. the boulder philharmonic orchestra presents performances that reflect our community's values, creativity, and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Rocky Mountain Public Media Inc and the most unlike its peers is Seed Peace. 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 48 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
44 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. 44 of the 73 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 SHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Colorado Springs Philharmonic Orchestra ↗
- Who funds GRALAND COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds PIKES PEAK UNITED WAY ↗
- Who funds Care and Share Inc ↗
- Who funds ASPEN SANTA FE BALLET ↗
- Who funds DENVER ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds CASA of the Pikes Peak Region ↗
- Who funds CONCERN WORLDWIDE (US) INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds JOHN AUSTIN CHELEY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH SHORE COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MILWAUKEE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM J PALMER PARKS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center ↗
- Who funds CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN PUBLIC BROADCAST HOUSE ↗
- Who funds COLORADO SPRINGS CONSERVATORY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SEED PEACE ↗
- Who funds PIKES PEAK HOSPICE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PIKES PEAK LIBRARY DISTRICT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds INDEPENDENCE PASS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CULTURAL OFFICE OF THE PIKES PEAK REGION ↗
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: El Pomar Foundation · Colorado Gives Foundation · Pikes Peak Community Foundation · The Joseph Henry Edmondson Foundation · Colorado Springs Health Foundation · Pikes Peak United Way · The Myron Stratton Home · INDYGIVE DBA Give Pikes Peak · The Denver Foundation · H Chase Stone Trust B Xxxxx5009 · The Marson Foundation · Bee Vradenburg 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 The Buettner 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.
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 The Buettner Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Buettner Family 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.