Colorado · Nonprofit
Food For Thought Denver
Food For Thought Denver (Colorado) receives grants from 91 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,419,841 to it, the largest being COMMUNITY FIRST FOUNDATION ($1,998,972). 42 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 53% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
Against its field
Food For Thought Denver holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 9,072 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,072 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Three funders worth looking at
Grantmakers with no record of funding this organization, ranked by how strongly the co-funder graph and the mission embeddings agree. The evidence is in section 03.
- Denver Post Community Foundationshared funderslocal
- Carrier of Hope Foundationportfolio match
- Lineage Foundation for Goodportfolio match
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.
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
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 28 funders, grant income rose $187k → $1.1M.
16 of 91 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 53% 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 91 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 leans on a few funders — its largest provides 31% of grant income and the top three 58%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
81% 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
53% 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 $3.0M that is directly attributable, 67% of it comes from Colorado funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $3.4M arriving through sponsors registered in 11 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.
Funders to approach
Grantmakers that don’t fund you yet, surfaced two ways: they back organizations that share your funders, or their grantees resemble your mission. The ones both signals agree on come first. Your 91 funders put you typical among the 400 organizations that share them.
- Denver Post Community Foundationshared funderslocalCO · backs 58 organizations that share your funders · funds 58 organizations near you
- Carrier of Hope Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Lineage Foundation for Goodportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Diabetes Prevention and Aid Fundportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Caliber Collision Centers Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Means Database Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Farmlink Projectportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- CoreGiving Coportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Hunger Related Eventsportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Buffalove Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Second Step Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Schlessman Foundation Incshared funderslocalCO · backs 97 organizations that share your funders · funds 147 organizations near you
From the co-funder graph (funders backing at least two comparable organizations, shrunk for grantee count, donor-advised and mega-funds excluded) and the universe embeddings. A research starting point; overlap is association, not a guarantee of fit.
Organizations like Food For Thought Denver
Nonprofits whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over the universe of 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. 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 91 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,419,841 to it, the largest being COMMUNITY FIRST FOUNDATION ($1,998,972). 42 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 53% 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 91 organizations giving $6,419,841 in grants to Food For Thought Denver, 42 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Food For Thought Denver?
- COMMUNITY FIRST 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.
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 91funders 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 August 27, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing