· Public charity
Thorne Ecological Institute
Thorne's mission is to build earth stewardship by connecting youth to nature through joyful, hands-on, place-based environmental education experiences.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 7 grants below total $138,835 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $149,771 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $10,936 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $7k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $132k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CAL-WOOD EDUCATION CENTER | $43,860 |
| COTTONWOOD INSTITUTE | $32,200 |
| YMCA OF BOULDER VALLEY | $21,500 |
| WILDLANDS RESTORATION VOLUNTEERS | $13,125 |
| KEYSTONE SCIENCE SCHOOL | $11,000 |
| CITY OF LONGMONT | $10,150 |
| GROWING GARDENS | $7,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of your 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.
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 +40% since the first grant, against +12% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $17k 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
- CECal-Wood Education Center8× · 2017–2025 · $494k · revenue +38%
- CICOTTONWOOD INSTITUTE9× · 2017–2025 · $351k · revenue +107%
- WRWILDLANDS RESTORATION VOLUNTEERS9× · 2017–2025 · $163k · revenue +39% · 64% of their budget
Funded once
- COCITY OF LAFAYETTEone grant, 2019 · $118k
- DCDESIGNSCAPES COLORADOone grant, 2019 · $19k
- RMROCKY MOUNTAIN MUSIC INCone grant, 2021 · $19k
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.
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,…
Works with farmers and ranchers to address water issues around the state impacting agriculture.
The Boulder Watershed Collective is a 501c3 non-profit stakeholder-driven organization established to address forested watershed health,resiliency and stewardship. We have three program areas: ClimateAdaptation and Resilience Watershed…
Wildland Awareness and Educational Institute is a Colorado based conservation organization established to ignite a connection to the outdoors as a means to improve health and for the furtherance of our conservation heritage. Its innovative…
UpRoot Colorado works to increase nutrition security in Colorado by harvesting and redistributing surplus agricultural crops while supporting the resilience of farmers and creating opportunities for volunteers to learn about and connect…
Advancing sustainability in the western area of the united states through a series of programs and activities designed to promote better ranching practices. a strong focus is to provide ranchers with the information, tools, technical…
Inspiring communities to save wildlife for future generations.
The mission is to reconnect sustainable food and natural medicine practices to the community through the development of community land providing edible and medicinal gardens, organic farm to table food, education and regenerative land…
Motivate and enable people to be active stewards of colorado's natural resources.
To provide club members with a safe, supportive, fun, and enriching environment that inspires and empowers them to achieve their greatest potential. bgcmd accomplishes this mission with a foundational social- emotional learning approach…
Poudre Wilderness Volunteers (PWV) is a Larimer County, Colorado, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1996. The mission of PWV is to assist the Canyon Lakes Ranger District of the United States Forest Service in managing and…
The Boulder Mountainbike Alliance exists to serve as a positive voice for mountain biking in the greater Boulder County, Colorado area by improving the trail experience for all users through social rides and events, advocacy, and trail…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Cottonwood Institute and the most unlike its peers is Community Cycles Co Boulder Community Cycles. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 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. 12 of the 19 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 Cal-Wood Education Center ↗
- Who funds COTTONWOOD INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds THE KEYSTONE SCIENCE SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds WILDLANDS RESTORATION VOLUNTEERS ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF BOULDER VALLEY ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY CYCLES CO BOULDER COMMUNITY CYCLES ↗
- Who funds ECO-CYCLE INC ↗
- Who funds EcoArts Connections ↗
- Who funds COLORADO DREAM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TCFSO ↗
- Who funds GROWING GARDENS OF BOULDER COUNTY ↗
- Who funds GROWE FOUNDATION ↗
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: Community Foundation Boulder County · The Denver Foundation · Colorado Gives Foundation · Gr's Foundation · AEC Trust · The Colorado Health Foundation · Patagoniaorg · Xcel Energy Foundation · Innovo Foundation · Rose Community Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Thorne Ecological Institute 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.