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· Private foundation

The Patten-Davis 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.

$2.8M
Granted FY2025still arriving
9
Grants FY2025still arriving
4
States reached
$1.5M
Largest
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Education$16MEnvironment$4.6MHealth$4.3MArts & Culture$763kFood & Nutrition$125kHuman Services$10kHousing & Shelter$5k
02FY2025 · 9 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • $10k–50k1 grant · $40k
  • $50k–250k4 grants · $410k
  • $250k+4 grants · $2.3M
$200,000
Median grant
4
States reached
$38M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
The Park People$1,475,000
National Trust for Historic Preserv$333,333
University of Colorado Foundation$250,000
The Nature Conservancy$250,000
Cheyenne Regional Foundation$200,000
ARCS Foundation Inc$75,000
Friends of Nursing$75,000
University of Colorado Foundation$60,000
Wyoming Agriculture in the Classroo$40,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–21, $4.1M) 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 its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 7%The Denver Hospice: $2.0M → 12%The Denver Hospice: $10k → 12%The Denver Hospice: $5k → 12%The Denver Hospice: $2.0M → 12%The Denver Hospice: $50k → 12%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
04

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 27% of The Patten-Davis Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 85% of the giving stays in CO; by stated purpose, 64%.

The Patten-Davis Foundationlessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address
How this is measured
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

99%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$25M · 10 repeat orgs$286k to everyone else

10 repeat relationships: 7 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

10
4

Total granted

$25M
$286k

Still filing today

60%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
EducationHuman ServicesHealthOther
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.

Backed again, and grew

  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION
    9× · 2017–2025 · $15M · revenue +79%
  • TP
    THE PARK PEOPLE
    9× · 2017–2025 · $2.0M · revenue +288% · 39% of their budget
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING FOUNDATION
    3× · 2020–2024 · $277k · revenue +130%

Funded once

  • TN
    The Nature Conservancy
    one grant, 2018 · $266k
  • FH
    Farnsworth House of Nat'l Tr for Hi
    one grant, 2023 · $10k
  • GB
    Goodnight Barn Historic Preservatio
    one grant, 2018 · $5k
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.

04Its field
05the grantee network

7 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

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 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 7 of the 15 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.

2
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
3
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/7
Grantees still filing
6/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION: $15,285,500 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION+1 more: $276,500 · EducationTHE PARK PEOPLE: $2,031,000 · OtherTHE PARK PEOPLETHE NATURE CONSERVANCY: $1,250,000 · OtherTHE NATURE CONSERVANCYThe Nature Conservancy of Wyoming: $1,025,000 · OtherThe Nature Conservancy of W…National Trust for Historic Preserv: $869,666 · OtherNational Trust for Historic…ARCS Foundation Inc: $617,600 · OtherARCS Foundation IncThe Nature Conservancy: $266,103 · OtherCheyenne Regional Foundation: $235,000 · Other+4 more: $145,000 · OtherHOSPICE OF METRO DENVER INC: $4,065,000 · Human ServicesHOSPICE OF METRO …Friends of Nursing: $195,000 · Health
Education$15,562,000Other$6,439,369Human Services$4,065,000Health$195,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetUNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION: $15,285,500 over 9y, 1.0% of budgetHOSPICE OF METRO DENVER INC: $4,065,000 over 5y, 5.4% of budgetTHE PARK PEOPLE: $2,031,000 over 9y, 39% of budgetTHE NATURE CONSERVANCY: $1,250,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF WYOMING FOUNDATION: $276,500 over 3y, 0.5% of budgetFriends of Nursing: $195,000 over 5y, 41% of budgetWYOMING AGRICULTURE IN THE CLASSROOM: $125,000 over 7y, 5.0% of budget
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 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds HOSPICE OF METRO DENVER INC ↗
  • Who funds THE PARK PEOPLE ↗
  • Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
  • Who funds UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds Friends of Nursing ↗
  • Who funds WYOMING AGRICULTURE IN THE CLASSROOM ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Patten-Davis Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Patten-Davis Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%3%13%28%50%funder's share of their income ↑0%6%13%19%25%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to The Patten-Davis Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to The Patten-Davis 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.

    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 15 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 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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