Colorado · Nonprofit
Betty Ford Alpine Gardens
Betty Ford Alpine Gardens (Colorado) receives grants from 56 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,567,999 to it, the largest being RICHARD T LIEBHABER AND KIRSTEN E LIEBHABER FAMILY FOUNDATION INC ($743,650). 41 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.8M
- Funders on record
- 56
- Grants received
- $3.6M
- Net assets
- $9.4M
What Betty Ford Alpine Gardens does
Mission
To protect the alpine environment through education, conservation and living plant collections.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Construction and maintenance of Betty Ford Alpine Gardens and public education relating to high altitude plants and the environment. The gardens host 100,000 visitors each year without charging an admission fee. The gardens is a nationally renowned botanic garden with special designations and awards from the north american plant collection consortium and the american public gardens association. The gardens coauthored the first alpine plant conservation plan created in response to climate change concerns. 1,200 children participate in the gardens environmental stewardship programs. The gardens also provide rare plant monitoring expertise and research services to state and federal environmental agencies.
$1,349,576 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,349,576.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2017 to 2018, from $5.9M to $7.5M (+27%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 13% · 2018 5% · 2019 10% · 2020 12% · 2021 5% · 2022 4% · 2023 9% · 2024 18% · 2025 10%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
62% of Betty Ford Alpine Gardens’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (88% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Nicola Ripley
Executive Director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 14 funders to 32 funders, grant income rose $161k → $578k.
11 of 56 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 41% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of Betty Ford Alpine Gardens’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 56 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
Betty Ford Alpine Gardens has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 21% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
42% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund Betty Ford Alpine Gardens.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 41% · 2018 33% · 2019 37% · 2020 57% · 2021 46% · 2022 33% · 2023 17% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
58% of Betty Ford Alpine Gardens's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 73% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
Betty Ford Alpine Gardens draws 73% of its grant income from funders outside Colorado, across 18 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.5M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
Betty Ford Alpine Gardens's funding base is broadening — from 14 funders to 32 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,209 environment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding Betty Ford Alpine Gardens receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $10k on record.
- Department of the Interior$10k
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like Betty Ford Alpine Gardens
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Colorado
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
69% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
81%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Betty Ford Alpine Gardens: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Betty Ford Alpine Gardens?
- Betty Ford Alpine Gardens (Colorado) receives grants from 56 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,567,999 to it, the largest being RICHARD T LIEBHABER AND KIRSTEN E LIEBHABER FAMILY FOUNDATION INC ($743,650). 41 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Betty Ford Alpine Gardens have?
- IRS filings report 56 organizations giving $3,567,999 in grants to Betty Ford Alpine Gardens, 41 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Betty Ford Alpine Gardens?
- RICHARD T LIEBHABER AND KIRSTEN E LIEBHABER FAMILY FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $743,650 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Betty Ford Alpine Gardens find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Colorado. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Betty Ford Alpine Gardens →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 56 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing