Arizona · Nonprofit
GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC
GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC (Arizona) receives grants from 41 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,437,302 to it, the largest being CATENA FOUNDATION ($1,377,220). 23 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.9M
- Funders on record
- 41
- Grants received
- $3.4M
- Net assets
- $2.0M
What Grand Canyon Youth Inc does
Mission
Grand Canyon Youth (GCY) offers educational outdoor expeditions that connect young people (ages 10 19) to the transformative power of the rivers and canyons of the Southwest. GCY has served over 14,000 youth in the 28 years since its founding in 1998. Expeditions typically run from March through October, take place on eight sections of river in Utah and Arizona, including Grand Canyon, and range from 1 18 days long. The GCY warehouse & offices are located in Flagstaff, Arizona.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
During 2025, GCY facilitated 61 expeditions, serving 846 youth participants from across the country who spent 4,037 days outdoors. This represents a 3% increase in youth user days over the prior year. GCY continues to be one of the most affordable programs of its kind, charging up to two-thirds less than other river trips. Participants typically pay only 25-40% of the actual cost of operating the programs; the rest is funded by grants, contributions & special events. Additionally, in 2025 over $134,000 of direct financial aid was awarded to 423 youth participants, to help ensure cost is not a deterrent to participating. GCY strives to connect underrepresented and underserved youth to the river, including Indigenous youth, survivors of trauma, refugee youth, and youth who would otherwise never have such an opportunity. The focus of GCY's programs continues to be the educational & community service curriculum, while valuing the teachable moments that occur along the river, where learning is not an abstract concept for youth but something concrete & hands-on. During 2025, participants engaged in over 16,000 hours of community service, were encouraged to earn a portion of the cost of…
$1,532,050 spent$750,408 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,532,050.
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 2019 to 2020, from $855k to $1.5M (+75%).
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 4% · 2019 2% · 2020 12% · 2021 6% · 2022 5% · 2023 5% · 2024 7% · 2025 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
55% of GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (13% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 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.
Board chair
Angela Keith
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 18 funders, grant income rose $79k → $458k.
10 of 41 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 23% 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 GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 41 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
GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 40% of grant income and the top three 62%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
33% 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 GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 75% · 2018 67% · 2019 60% · 2020 42% · 2021 55% · 2022 45% · 2023 49% — 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
55% of GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 56% 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
GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC draws 86% of its grant income from funders outside Arizona, across 13 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $800k arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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
GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 1,767 recreation & sports nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,767 recreation & sports nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $306k on record.
- Department of the Interior$306k
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 GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC
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 Arizona
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
90% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
81%
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 GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC: 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 GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC?
- GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC (Arizona) receives grants from 41 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,437,302 to it, the largest being CATENA FOUNDATION ($1,377,220). 23 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC have?
- IRS filings report 41 organizations giving $3,437,302 in grants to GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC, 23 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC?
- CATENA FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,377,220 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like GRAND CANYON YOUTH INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Arizona. 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 41 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