Montana · Nonprofit
BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC
BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC (Montana) receives grants from 74 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,728,257 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($494,475). 51 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $1.6M
- Funders on record
- 74
- Grants received
- $4.7M
- Net assets
- $1.8M
What Big Sky Youth Empowerment Project Inc does
Mission
Big sky youth empowerment creates a transformative community where vulnerable teenagers experience belonging, purpose, and well-being through group mentorship, adventure, and connection with the natural world. Our vision is that byep teens discover their own capacity for growth and success, confidently contributing towards a kinder and more connected community. Our motto: get outside. Grow inside.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
In 2023, big sky youth empowerment worked with 141 youth providing 37,350 hours of programming. 69 mentors and tutors provided 10,320 hours of service. Youth participated in 36 weeks of evening workshops and 29 weekend adventures. The weeknight workshop curriculum focused on a wide range of topics including trust, teamwork, communication, coping skills, goal setting, independent living skills, andenvironmental stewardship.adventures included skiing and snowboarding in winter. Summer adventures included whitewater rafting, outdoor rock climbing,mountain biking, hiking, skateboarding, circus skills, aerial skills, lake days/swimming, plein air painting, stream ecology workshops, yellowstone national park, missouri headwaters state park, and floating on the madison river. Fall adventures included biking, hiking, indoor rock climbing, horseback riding, archery, ceramics, goat & alpaca farm visits, aerial silks, geocaching, hay maze, jumptime, the run for your life 5k, museum of the rockies, montana science center, and caving at the lewis and clark caverns.we provided tutoring 2 nights per week during the school season and teens engaged in 16 electives workshops held 1 night per week.…
$1,546,427 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2023 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,546,427.
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 2022 to 2023, from $4.0M to $2.9M (−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 16% · 2018 0% · 2019 2% · 2020 31% · 2021 27% · 2022 14% · 2023 10%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
92% of BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (82% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 8 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 12 funders to 34 funders, grant income rose $252k → $541k.
21 of 74 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 32% 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 BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 74 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
BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 10% of grant income, and it takes 8 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 8 funders to its left
38% 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 BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 48% · 2018 28% · 2019 22% · 2020 20% · 2021 18% · 2022 11% · 2023 11% — 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
50% of BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 69% 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
BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC draws 77% of its grant income from funders outside Montana, across 21 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 15 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
BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC's funding base is broadening — from 12 funders to 34 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,928 youth development nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $911k on record.
- Department of Justice$500k
- Corporation for National and Community Service$411k
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 BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC
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 Montana
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
75% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
94%
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 BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC: 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 BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC?
- BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC (Montana) receives grants from 74 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,728,257 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($494,475). 51 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC have?
- IRS filings report 74 organizations giving $4,728,257 in grants to BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC, 51 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $494,475 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like BIG SKY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Montana. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 74 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