Colorado · Nonprofit
BIG THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION
BIG THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION (Colorado) receives grants from 12 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,189,796 to it, the largest being NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION ($781,587). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $1.1M
- Funders on record
- 12
- Grants received
- $1.2M
- Net assets
- $180k
What Big Thompson Watershed Coalition does
Mission
Vision: a healthy and resilient big thompson watershed benefitting fish, wildlife, and the people itserves through collaborative efforts for current and future generations. Mission: working with others to take action that protects and restores the health and vitality of the big thompson watershed for the use and enjoyment of our community.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Forest health and management goal: mitigating wildfire risk and enhancing forest health through collaborative forest management projects. Under the leadership of our forestry project manager, our forestry program expanded throughout 2024. Throughout the year we worked in three big t communities treating forests and roadways, thinning 70 acres between the glen haven, waltonia and storm mountain communities. We worked with 36 different private landowners to mitigate wildfire risk, enhance forest health, and increase emergency ingress/egress along priority roadways. We expanded our home ignition zone (hiz) program in two high-risk communities in 2024. We did home assessments for 17 glen haven and 6 storm mountain landowners and garnered interest from 44 more landowners. We were able to remove key large trees around 9 homes in glen haven and thinned 3 miles of roadway through volunteer and community efforts. We strengthened partnerships as a member of the big thompson watershed health partnership, working to identify the most strategic places to implement forest health and fuels reduction projects to make the biggest impact on the landscape with our main focus being the development of…
$500,824 spent56% of program spendingDisaster recovery goal: helping our lands and community recover from flood and fire through collaboration, restoration, and resiliency building. An immediate need following catastrophic fires like the cameron peak fire is to reduce erosion on hillslopes. High severity fires burn away the majority of vegetation and topsoil on hillslopes leaving hydrophobic (water repellent) soils and burning the seed sources for future vegetation growth. Hydrophobic soils with little vegetation can be heavily impacted by even small rain events leading to severe erosion and sediment, ash, and debris flowing downhill into waterways. When our waterways are inundated with excess water, sediment, and debris, post-fire flooding occurs impacting downstream values, aquatic populations, communities, and roadways. With no seed sources to produce new tree growth, some areas may take decades or longer to become reforested. To address this need in 2024, we took a two-fold approach focusing on stream restoration and reforestation efforts. Led by our stream restoration project manager, we continued our post-fire recovery work to address restoration in streams that have high amounts of post-fire flooding, debris…
$377,046 spent42% of program spendingStream & water resources goal: enhancing the ecological health, function, and connectivity of our river system for human and natural communities. The river envisioning project is a stream management planning project that considers the future of the watershed and the big thompson river system through loveland. The goal is to build a shared vision for improving the big thompson river by identifying strategies and action plans that respect property and water rights, address water user needs, and enhance environmental conditions and recreational opportunities. The plan assessed the river health conditions and provided a road map for the next 20 years by prioritizing areas of the river that can benefit from river health and improvement projects. In 2024, we partnered with wildland restoration volunteers and the city of loveland to host volunteer river cleanups in loveland (15 cubic yards of trash removed, 456 volunteers, 2,325 volunteer hours) and community education on river health initiatives through a great outdoors colorado grant. We also secured additional funding to advance the planning of water infrastructure enhancements by hiring a consultant to explore project opportunities…
$7,244 spent1% of program spendingEducation and outreach goal: providing our communities with educational events, community meetings and gatherings, and volunteer events presentations, and digital outreach to build relationships, increase awareness about watershed health and the work we do, and steward the watershed. We work to build education and outreach into all our three main programmatic areas. Under the leadership of our communications and outreach manager, we reached new audiences, continued to build relationships with our communities, updated our website and produced new educational resources. We gave 13 presentations, led or assisted with 7 outreach events, and hosted 5 volunteer projects reaching over 1,274 people. We held our fourth annual trek the thompson educational event and hosted our first donor appreciation event reaching 100 community members.
$10,725 spent1% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $895,839.
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 $1.3M to $311k (−77%).
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 99% · 2018 89% · 2019 99% · 2020 95% · 2021 54% · 2022 74% · 2023 86% · 2024 74%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
100% of BIG THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (88% 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 1 funder to 3 funders, grant income rose $5k → $14k.
3 of 12 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 22% 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 THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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 THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION leans on a few funders — its largest provides 66% of grant income and the top three 88%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
97% 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 THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 100% · 2018 44% · 2019 100% · 2020 73% · 2021 87% · 2022 82% · 2023 98% — 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
25% of BIG THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 67% 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 THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION draws 87% of its grant income from funders outside Colorado, across 6 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $256k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 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 THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION is better cushioned than half of the 2,187 environment nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,187 environment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding BIG THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $691k on record.
- Department of Agriculture$630k
- Department of the Interior$61k
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 THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION
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
87% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
84%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for BIG THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION: 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 THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION?
- BIG THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION (Colorado) receives grants from 12 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,189,796 to it, the largest being NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION ($781,587). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does BIG THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION have?
- IRS filings report 12 organizations giving $1,189,796 in grants to BIG THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION, 8 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of BIG THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION?
- NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $781,587 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like BIG THOMPSON WATERSHED COALITION 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 Big Thompson Watershed Coalition →
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 12 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