Colorado · Nonprofit
Food For Thought Denver
Food For Thought Denver (Colorado) receives grants from 96 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,603,896 to it, the largest being COLORADO GIVES FOUNDATION ($1,998,972). 44 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 52% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.0M
- Funders on record
- 96
- Grants received
- $6.6M
- Net assets
- $5.7M
What Food For Thought Denver does
Mission
Food for Thought-Denver strives to eliminate weekend hunger for students in the Denver area by providing food Powersacks. Doing so allows them to contribute more positively to their school environment and the communities in which they live, regardless of economic and social class. We believe that no student should go hungry.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Food for Thought Denver delivered 223,550 PowerSacks to Denvers Title 1 elementary schools during the financial period reported in this form 990.
$2,157,606 spent$1,774,241 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $2,157,606.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2020, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2020, 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 $1.7M to $3.3M (+102%).
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: 2020 3% · 2021 15% · 2022 3% · 2023 13% · 2024 5%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
87% of Food For Thought Denver’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (48% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 6 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 4 funders to 28 funders, grant income rose $187k → $1.1M.
17 of 96 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 52% 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 Food For Thought Denver’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 96 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
Food For Thought Denver has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 30% 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
79% 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 Food For Thought Denver.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 49% · 2018 37% · 2019 71% · 2020 42% · 2021 43% · 2022 28% · 2023 26% — 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
38% of Food For Thought Denver's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 46% 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
52% of Food For Thought Denver'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 $3.2M that is directly attributable, 66% of it comes from Colorado funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $3.5M arriving through sponsors registered in 12 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
Food For Thought Denver holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 9,615 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,615 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Food For Thought Denver
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
97% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
88%
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 Food For Thought Denver: 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 Food For Thought Denver?
- Food For Thought Denver (Colorado) receives grants from 96 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,603,896 to it, the largest being COLORADO GIVES FOUNDATION ($1,998,972). 44 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 52% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Food For Thought Denver have?
- IRS filings report 96 organizations giving $6,603,896 in grants to Food For Thought Denver, 44 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Food For Thought Denver?
- COLORADO GIVES FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,998,972 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Food For Thought Denver 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 Food For Thought Denver →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2020–2025), and the filings of 96 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