Colorado · Nonprofit
BOULDER FOOD RESCUE
BOULDER FOOD RESCUE (Colorado) receives grants from 56 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,055,897 to it, the largest being COLORADO GIVES FOUNDATION ($423,192). 28 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 55% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $3.8M
- Funders on record
- 56
- Grants received
- $3.1M
- Net assets
- $952k
What Boulder Food Rescue does
Mission
Food redistribution- rescue food that would otherwise go to waste and distribute it to low-income communities across Boulder.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
Boulder Food Rescue redistributes healthy food to low-income communities thatwouldn't otherwise have access. We redistribute 1,400 pounds of produce every day toaffordable housing sites, pre-schools and other easily accessible places, to minimize barriers to accessing fresh produce. We engage a volunteer base of 150 people who do many of our pick ups by bicycle. Community leaders distribute the food amongst themselves. We support leadership development, movement building, and participation. We manage a national network of food rescues that share resources and best practices and are building cooperatively owned software for this nation wide movement.
$3,673,654 spent$880,979 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $3,673,654.
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 2019 to 2020, from $164k to $1.1M (+596%).
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 1% · 2018 5% · 2019 5% · 2020 7% · 2021 4% · 2022 3% · 2023 3% · 2024 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of BOULDER FOOD RESCUE’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (94% 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.
Board chair
Mackenzie Sehlke
Board Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 7 funders to 18 funders, grant income rose $49k → $322k.
19 of 56 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 55% 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 BOULDER FOOD RESCUE’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
BOULDER FOOD RESCUE has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 14% of grant income, and it takes 7 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 7 funders to its left
77% 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 BOULDER FOOD RESCUE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 46% · 2018 84% · 2019 29% · 2020 16% · 2021 37% · 2022 28% · 2023 33% — 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
36% of BOULDER FOOD RESCUE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 50% 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
55% of BOULDER FOOD RESCUE's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $1.4M that is directly attributable, 70% of it comes from funders outside Colorado, across 15 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.7M arriving through sponsors registered in 10 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
BOULDER FOOD RESCUE's revenue grew 60% between 2017 and 2024.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,130 food & nutrition nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like BOULDER FOOD RESCUE
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
95% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
99%
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 BOULDER FOOD RESCUE: 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 BOULDER FOOD RESCUE?
- BOULDER FOOD RESCUE (Colorado) receives grants from 56 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,055,897 to it, the largest being COLORADO GIVES FOUNDATION ($423,192). 28 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 55% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does BOULDER FOOD RESCUE have?
- IRS filings report 56 organizations giving $3,055,897 in grants to BOULDER FOOD RESCUE, 28 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of BOULDER FOOD RESCUE?
- COLORADO GIVES FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $423,192 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like BOULDER FOOD RESCUE 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 Boulder Food Rescue →
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 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 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing