Montana · Nonprofit
CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD
CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD (Montana) receives grants from 19 organizations whose IRS filings report $306,233 to it, the largest being WHITEFISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ($117,950). 13 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 68% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $441k
- Funders on record
- 19
- Grants received
- $306k
- Net assets
- $196k
What Citizens for a Better Flathead does
Mission
What do we do? The mission of Citizens for a Better Flathead is to foster citizen participation and champion sustainable solutions needed to keep the flathead ecologically and economically healthy. Since 1992, Citizens for a Better Flathead has been a leader at the forefront of addressing the challenges that rapid growth is bringing to our region. We work to protect the valley's clean water, natural beauty, and friendly communities through solid planning and policy solutions. We champion the democratic principles, sustainable solutions, and shared vision necessary to keep the flathead special forever. Primary program overview: over our thirty-four years of work in the flathead, we have built a reputation as a non-partisan, well informed, and solution-oriented community advocacy organization. We focused on land use, water quality, transportation, and waste reduction issues. We work to alert and inform the public of opportunities to be actively involved in critical decisions shaping how
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Protecting water quality and conserving water resources: Citizens for a Better Flathead (cbf) continued to monitor and respond to projects, policies, and resident's concerns on matters that could threaten and impact water quality and water rights within the flathead basin. We work daily to identify the best available science and proactive solutions to protect and sustain the flathead's waters for current and future generations. We have been actively sharing research and information with the public, encouraging public participation, attending meetings and submitting comments. We continue to work to hold decision makers accountable to protecting our water quality and water resources, through recent court filings when we find that decisions were not grounded in science, were arbitrary and capricious, failed to comply with existing laws, and/or violated the public's to know and participate in issues of significant interest to the public. Community driven planning: cbf educated individuals about current updates to growth policies and transportation planning in the flathead's three cities and the county, by sharing research and information, encouraging public participation, attending…
$313,260 spent$118,969 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $313,260.
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 $139k to $207k (+48%).
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.
70% of CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (91% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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 6 funders to 8 funders, grant income rose $39k → $43k.
7 of 19 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 68% 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 CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD’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
CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 39% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
69% 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 CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 38% · 2018 80% · 2019 43% · 2020 36% · 2021 51% · 2022 70% · 2023 42% — growing more concentrated.
“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
31% of CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 68% 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
68% of CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD'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 $99k that is directly attributable, 66% of it comes from Montana funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $207k arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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
CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 13,062 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 13,062 human services nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD
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
84% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
68%
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 CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD: 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 CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD?
- CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD (Montana) receives grants from 19 organizations whose IRS filings report $306,233 to it, the largest being WHITEFISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ($117,950). 13 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 68% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD have?
- IRS filings report 19 organizations giving $306,233 in grants to CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD, 13 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD?
- WHITEFISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $117,950 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLATHEAD 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 FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 19 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