Colorado · Nonprofit
CHEF ANN FOUNDATION
CHEF ANN FOUNDATION (Colorado) receives grants from 57 organizations whose IRS filings report $15,455,828 to it, the largest being Whole Kids Foundation ($2,007,873). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $21M
- Funders on record
- 57
- Grants received
- $15M
- Net assets
- $7.8M
What Chef Ann Foundation does
Mission
To ensure that school food professionals have the resources, funding and support they need to provide fresh, healthy, delicious, cooked from scratch meals that support the health of children and our planet.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
In order to help school districts build, implement, and sustain a self-operated, scratch-cook program, the Chef Ann Foundation (caf) provides a continuum of programming that meets districts where they are and helps support them in moving their programs forward. Our work is grounded in a systems-change approach for school food operations that encompasses five key areas of focus: food, facilities, finance, human resources, and marketing. We execute this work through three primary categories: scratch cooking, workforce & professional development, and sustainability.(continued on schedule o)scratch cooking: caf provides high-touch, customized technical assistance to transition schools from processed, heat-and-serve meals to whole-ingredient scratch cooking.get schools cooking: an intensive 3-year assessment and strategic planning program that provides schools with the operational knowledge to transition from a heat-and-serve to a scratch-cook operational model.custom district support: projects designed in collaboration with school districts to address their specific school food challenges and goals.workforce & professional development: these programs equip school food professionals…
$14,877,646 spentof which $1,523,915 as grants$45,357 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $14,877,646.
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 2024 to 2025, from $5.8M to $9.3M (+59%).
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% · 2020 4% · 2021 9% · 2024 7% · 2025 60%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of CHEF ANN FOUNDATION’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (23% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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
Mara Fleishman
Chief executive officer
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2018 and FY2019 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 9 funders to 24 funders, grant income rose $1.0M → $2.8M.
9 of 57 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 14% 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 CHEF ANN FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 57 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
CHEF ANN FOUNDATION has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 13% 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
27% 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 CHEF ANN FOUNDATION.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 59% · 2018 58% · 2019 37% · 2020 27% · 2021 24% · 2022 33% · 2023 36% — 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
52% of CHEF ANN FOUNDATION's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 51% 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
CHEF ANN FOUNDATION draws 95% of its grant income from funders outside Colorado, across 20 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.2M arriving through sponsors registered in 7 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
CHEF ANN FOUNDATION runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 3,794 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,794 education nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding CHEF ANN FOUNDATION receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $8.6M on record — $8.6M federal, $99 state.
- Department of Agriculture$8.6M
- FEES-GENERAL-FOR SERVICE $99
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 CHEF ANN FOUNDATION
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
85% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
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 CHEF ANN FOUNDATION: 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 CHEF ANN FOUNDATION?
- CHEF ANN FOUNDATION (Colorado) receives grants from 57 organizations whose IRS filings report $15,455,828 to it, the largest being Whole Kids Foundation ($2,007,873). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does CHEF ANN FOUNDATION have?
- IRS filings report 57 organizations giving $15,455,828 in grants to CHEF ANN FOUNDATION, 29 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CHEF ANN FOUNDATION?
- Whole Kids Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $2,007,873 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CHEF ANN FOUNDATION 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.
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 57 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