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Colorado · Private foundation

Watson Family 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.

$12k
Granted FY2025(still arriving)
7
Grants FY2025
9
Organizations funded FY2024
22%
First-time grantees FY2024
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2025
$1,000
Largest grant, FY2025
$4,521
Organizations funded a year
7 to 11
FY2018 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025
4
Total assets, FY2025
$142k
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 22% of the organizations Watson Family Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 6% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $809 went to new ones.

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

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

’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
HealthEducationArts & CultureRecreation & SportsPhilanthropyPublic BenefitOther
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
FY2025still arriving6$11k17%
FY20249$13k22%
FY20237$9k43%
FY20227$18k57%
FY202111$14k55%
FY20208$9k50%
FY20198$12k25%
FY20188$13k50%
100% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Health$51kEducation$35kHuman Services$16kCrime & Legal$5kPublic Benefit$2kArts & Culture$2kPublic Safety & Disaster$1kEmployment$1kOther$0

Where its grants go

Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.

Which US states its grants reach

MN
MI
OR
SD
PA
CA
CO
MD
DC
TX

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Show all 19 grantees

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 13 recipients with no EIN on record ($15k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget Watson Family Foundation supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetThe Challenge Foundation Inc: $26,191 over 9y, 0.2% of budgetSuddenly Pink Foundation: $25,972 over 8y, 5.3% of budgetTee It Up for the Troops Inc: $11,992 over 6y, 0.1% of budgetIlluminate Community Recovery Servi: $10,000 over 1y, 17% of budgetFace It Together Inc: $3,640 over 2y, 0.3% of budgetDenver Rescue Mission: $3,052 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetColorado Gynecologic Cancer Alliance: $2,000 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetHeartlight Center Inc: $1,750 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetOut and About Colorado: $1,500 over 3y, 0.3% of budgetDress for Success Denver: $1,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetMusicares Foundation Inc: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetThe Sue Miller Day of Caring: $750 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetAmerican Heart Association Inc: $553 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetWesley Players Theatre Company: $500 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetElderheart Inc: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMile High 360: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetColorado Golf Foundation: $350 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetAmerican Cancer Society Inc: $309 over 1y, 0.0% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 18.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Colorado Gives FoundationCO20.2× affinity8 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Colorado Gives Foundation · Rose Community Foundation · The Colorado Health Foundation · The Denver Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Endowment Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare Watson Family Foundation with peer funders

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Watson Family Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Watson 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.

About Watson Family Foundation

How much does Watson Family Foundation give?
Watson Family Foundation reported 7 grants totaling $11,689 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 7 and 11 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.
What does Watson Family Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (45%), Education (31%), Human Services (14%).
Who are Watson Family Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: The Challenge Foundation Inc ($26k), Suddenly Pink Foundation ($26k), Tee It Up for the Troops Inc ($12k).
Does Watson Family Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2024, 22% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Watson Family 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.
Which funders back the same organizations as Watson Family Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Colorado Gives Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, The Colorado Health Foundation.
Where is Watson Family Foundation based?
Watson Family 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 33 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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