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Montana · Nonprofit

Center Pole

Center Pole (Montana) receives grants from 50 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,695,941 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($570,500). 24 of them have funded it in more than one year.

Revenue FY2024
$1.7M
Funders on record
50
Grants received
$3.7M
Net assets
$278k
24/50 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 20%
01What it does

What Center Pole does

Mission

Promote knowledge, equity, justice, opportunity, and prosperity in Indian reservation communities and preserve and protect Indigenous lifeways.

As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.

Programs

  1. Food Sovereignty/Healthy Food Systems/Sustainability:Establishment of a healthy foods hub allowing greater food access in the ruralreservation "food desert." The hub includes a food bank, a healthy foods cafe, and a food distribution project delivering about 400,000 pounds of food a year to two impoverished reservations and surrounding isolated communities as well as making deliveries to those without transportation; a program that serves the specialized needs of elders while involving them in the process through sharing their wisdom and their knowledge of traditional foods and lifeways, and an educational program that promotes healthy lifestyles and teaches nutrition, natural farming, hunting, gathering wild plants and medicines and the preparation of traditional foods. A land-based Indigenous Learning Center is in the process of development to be a learning and training center for food sovereignty, traditional land recovery and restoration and the preservation of the biodiversity of Mother Earth.

    $854,690 spent
    60% of program spending
  2. Social Enterprise/Workforce Training:Reservation youth, young adults and families are trained in workforce, businessskills and life skills at our social enterprises that include a coffee roastingbusiness, a community radio station, a resale shop, a cafe and gift shop andcultural tourism projects. Interns learn about creating non-profit organizations andbusinesses, money management skills and setting personal, educational and careergoals.

    $406,000 spent$1,267 earned by the program
    28% of program spending
  3. Youth Development and Leadership:Youth participate in enrichment activities that include Crow language, history andheritage; wilderness skills; Native skills; Native games; literacy and academicenrichment; community radio; life skills, sustainable living and other leadershipactivities. Successful youth participate in educational programs beyond thereservation and are assisted with college and career opportunities. Youth arementored in the Crow cultural way, taught skills to cope with historical trauma, areprovided tools to make change in the communities and learn to be successful in theglobal environment. 3600 reservation youth participated in Center Pole activities.

    $170,000 spent
    12% of program spending

The 3 programs described on its FY2023 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,430,690.

02The organization over time

The organization over time

Each line starts at 100 in 2019, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2019, 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.

100 = 20192019 Revenue 100 ($2.4M) Expenses 100 ($2.6M) Net assets 100 ($79k)2020 Revenue 189 ($4.5M) Expenses 147 ($3.8M) Net assets 973 ($772k)2021 Revenue 138 ($3.3M) Expenses 130 ($3.4M) Net assets 851 ($675k)2022 Revenue 122 ($2.9M) Expenses 128 ($3.3M) Net assets 319 ($253k)2023 Revenue 63 ($1.5M) Expenses 56 ($1.5M) Net assets 372 ($295k)2024 Revenue 72 ($1.7M) Expenses 66 ($1.7M) Net assets 351 ($278k)
201920202021202220232024
Revenue (72)Expenses (66)Net assets (351)Peer revenue range

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 $90k to $786k (+778%).

$90k
$786k
$678k
$263k
$321k
$278k
201920202021202220232024
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

Government-grant reliance: 2020 4% · 2021 2%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.

100% of Center Pole’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (81% for the typical peer).

This organization
Typical peer · 11,793 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 6 reported years ran a deficit.

−$210k
’19
$693k
’20
−$97k
’21
−$422k
’22
$42k
’23
−$17k
’24
1.4
months of
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

Patti Cass

Chairman

As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.

201920202021202220232024
Listed1185555
Joined·+4+0+0+0+0
No longer listed·73000
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 8 funders to 11 funders, grant income rose $157k → $296k.

13 of 50 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 24% 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 Center Pole’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 50 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

Center Pole has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 15% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left

55% 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 Center Pole.

15%
largest funder
39%
top three
~13
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 64% · 2018 39% · 2019 25% · 2020 26% · 2021 30% · 2022 23% · 2023 42% — 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

27% of Center Pole's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 48% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y+3y+4y+5y+6y

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

Center Pole draws 79% of its grant income from funders outside Montana, across 13 states in all.

WA
MT
MN
IL
NY
MA
WY
SD
CA
CO
DE
NM
DC

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
Montana out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $871k 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.

04Its place in the field

Against its field

Center Pole's funding base is broadening — from 8 funders to 11 as grant income climbed.

Operating margin−1% · below the median
Months of reserve1.4mo · below the median
Revenue growth (annualized)−6% · bottom quartile

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 11,263 human services nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024

Organizations like Center Pole

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

05Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

98% of spending goes to programs.

Program 98%Management 2%Fundraising 0%

Governance

4
board members
100%
independent
–Conflict-of-interest policy–Whistleblower policy–Document retention–Board reviewed the 990–Audited financials

Public support

98%

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 Center Pole: 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.

A paid feature, included from the $75 plan up. Sign in to download.

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 Center Pole?
Center Pole (Montana) receives grants from 50 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,695,941 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($570,500). 24 of them have funded it in more than one year.
How many funders does Center Pole have?
IRS filings report 50 organizations giving $3,695,941 in grants to Center Pole, 24 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of Center Pole?
FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $570,500 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like Center Pole 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.

Play a game about who funds Center Pole →

These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2019–2024), and the filings of 50 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