Colorado · Nonprofit
DENVER URBAN GARDENS
DENVER URBAN GARDENS (Colorado) receives grants from 69 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,976,475 to it, the largest being FIDELITY FOUNDATION ($750,000). 40 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $4.4M
- Funders on record
- 69
- Grants received
- $4.0M
- Net assets
- $1.6M
What Denver Urban Gardens does
Mission
Denver Urban Gardens' (dug) mission is to provide access, skills, and resources for people to grow healthy food in community and regenerate urban green spaces.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Dug's community gardens include both public and private spaces, managed by a dedicated team of volunteer garden leaders and cultivated by a large network of community gardeners. Community gardens provide an excellent opportunity to grow fresh, healthy food for individuals and families. Gardeners typically plant annuals-such as tomatoes and pumpkins-each season, following the growing cycle from seed starting to preparing the garden for dormancy. The diversity in dug's gardens is reflected in their varying sizes, organizational structures, community cultures, and internal community agreements. Dug's food forests, established with generous community support, have expanded to numerous locations across the area and feature a variety of food-producing tree and shrub species. Unlike community gardens, food forests offer ongoing support for the community through perennial trees and bushes that yield food year after year. These spaces are open to everyone, allowing community members to harvest berries, nuts, and other produce as they wish. Each site is cared for by trained volunteer tree keepers who help maintain the area and foster a sense of community.
$1,635,762 spentof which $844,304 as grants$204,036 earned by the program43% of program spendingUnder the food access umbrella, dug offers three unique programs: grow a garden, culturally inclusive seeds, and community seed distribution. The grow a garden program connects individuals and community groups with seeds, seedlings, and educational resources to support growing food at home or in a dug garden. This program serves a wide range of community members, many of whom are from households with limited income. Like dug's other food access initiatives, the community seed distribution program is designed to reduce financial barriers to growing food, whether at home or in a community garden. Dug's community seed distribution is one of the largest publicly available collections of free seeds in the area, helping thousands of individuals and families start their own gardens. The culturally inclusive seeds program is designed to support community members with marginalized identities by providing access to rare and specialty plant varieties, with an emphasis on cultural inclusivity. Dug believes that meaningful and sustainable food access prioritizes foods that are familiar and desirable to each individual, regardless of background. Through this program, dug supports a global array…
$361,356 spent$43,644 earned by the program10% of program spendingDug's education programming has been supporting urban gardeners throughout metro denver for many years. These programs are grounded in a deep respect for all people and their traditions, promote organic practices that regenerate the earth, and engage learners in a variety of ways. Dug offers both adult and youth education programs, as well as a community composter training program. The adult and youth education programs provide numerous workshops and classes, many of which offer flexible, pay-what-you-can options to ensure accessibility for all. The community composter training program is widely attended by community members and dug gardeners across the front range, helping to build knowledge and skills for sustainable growing and composting practices.
$1,795,986 spent$254,675 earned by the program47% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $3,793,104.
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 2020 to 2021, from $536k to $1.4M (+169%).
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 18% · 2018 12% · 2019 17% · 2020 16% · 2021 28% · 2022 6% · 2023 35% · 2024 39%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
90% of DENVER URBAN GARDENS’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (88% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 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.
Chief executive
Linda Appel Lipsius
Executive director
Board chair
Jason Longsdorf
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2018 and FY2019, and between the FY2019 and FY2020 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 6 funders to 27 funders, grant income rose $263k → $462k.
12 of 69 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.
Left out of every figure on this page: $1.4M from 6 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest The Colorado Health Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money DENVER URBAN GARDENS raised.
From the IRS filings of DENVER URBAN GARDENS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 69 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
DENVER URBAN GARDENS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 19% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
49% 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 DENVER URBAN GARDENS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 76% · 2018 81% · 2019 47% · 2020 33% · 2021 28% · 2022 43% · 2023 16% — 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
48% of DENVER URBAN GARDENS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 58% 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
DENVER URBAN GARDENS draws 71% of its grant income from funders outside Colorado, across 25 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $955k arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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
DENVER URBAN GARDENS's funding base is broadening — from 6 funders to 27 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,187 environment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding DENVER URBAN GARDENS receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.1M on record.
- Department of Agriculture$598k
- Environmental Protection Agency$500k
- National Endowment for the Arts$20k
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 DENVER URBAN GARDENS
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
84% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
89%
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 DENVER URBAN GARDENS: 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 DENVER URBAN GARDENS?
- DENVER URBAN GARDENS (Colorado) receives grants from 69 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,976,475 to it, the largest being FIDELITY FOUNDATION ($750,000). 40 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does DENVER URBAN GARDENS have?
- IRS filings report 69 organizations giving $3,976,475 in grants to DENVER URBAN GARDENS, 40 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of DENVER URBAN GARDENS?
- FIDELITY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $750,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like DENVER URBAN GARDENS 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 FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 69 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