Montana · Nonprofit
FORWARD MT FOUNDATION
FORWARD MT FOUNDATION (Montana) receives grants from 48 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,033,996 to it, the largest being ALLIANCE FOR YOUTH ORGANIZING ($1,785,509). 23 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $2.6M
- Funders on record
- 48
- Grants received
- $7.0M
- Net assets
- $2.6M
What Forward Mt Foundation does
Mission
Educate, engage and organize young montanans to shape their democracy to improve their lives and the lives of fellow montanans.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
VOTER REGISTRATION AND MOBILIZATIONForward Montana Foundation registered 8,022 voters, through in-person and online tactics. You could reliably find our staff and volunteers with clipboards in hand registering Montanans to vote at farmers markets, campuses, concerts, and state-wide events. We also knocked on 5,359 doors in a door-to-door voter registration canvass.We held voter registration drives on 20 high school campuses and over 13 college campuses across the state, including public, private, and tribal colleges. Forward Montana Foundation also collected 5,767 pledges-to-vote, and followed up with those voters via text ahead of the primary and general elections. Forward Montana Foundation high school fellows made 7,533 calls to our state's youngest voters.
$1,275,675 spentof which $302,500 as grants86% of program spendingLEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENTIn 2024, we graduated 17 community organizing fellows and 20 high school fellows from across the state. Fellows go through a robust curriculum that provides weekly training on community organizing and civic engagement. Fellows lead on a final project that connects their interests to meaningful change in their communities.
$104,956 spent7% of program spendingSTRENGTHENING DEMOCRACYFoward Montana Foundation launched Civics Unders The Big Sky, an effort to provide Montana communities with trustworthy civic information, approachable educational resources, and unbiased voter registration to give a voice to the future workers and citizens of our democracy. In 2024, we facilitated civic templates in 20 classrooms and hosted Democracy Days voter registration drives in 19 schools across the state.
$100,750 spentof which $100,750 as grants7% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,481,381.
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 2023 to 2024, from $1.8M to $3.0M (+68%).
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.
99% of FORWARD MT FOUNDATION’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (51% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 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 4 funders to 17 funders, grant income rose $76k → $1.3M.
15 of 48 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 32% 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 FORWARD MT FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 48 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
FORWARD MT FOUNDATION has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 25% 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
72% 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 FORWARD MT FOUNDATION.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 66% · 2018 45% · 2019 29% · 2020 25% · 2021 46% · 2022 47% · 2023 38% — 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 FORWARD MT FOUNDATION's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 48% 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
FORWARD MT FOUNDATION draws 88% of its grant income from funders outside Montana, across 14 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 10 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
FORWARD MT FOUNDATION runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 8,121 health nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 8,121 health nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like FORWARD MT 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 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
86%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Forward Mt · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for FORWARD MT 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 FORWARD MT FOUNDATION?
- FORWARD MT FOUNDATION (Montana) receives grants from 48 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,033,996 to it, the largest being ALLIANCE FOR YOUTH ORGANIZING ($1,785,509). 23 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does FORWARD MT FOUNDATION have?
- IRS filings report 48 organizations giving $7,033,996 in grants to FORWARD MT FOUNDATION, 23 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of FORWARD MT FOUNDATION?
- ALLIANCE FOR YOUTH ORGANIZING is the largest funder on record, with $1,785,509 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like FORWARD MT FOUNDATION 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 FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 48 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