Montana · Nonprofit
HELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
HELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION (Montana) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $694,417 to it, the largest being Montana Community Foundation Inc ($452,352). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 83% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly. HELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
Hosts funds for others
HELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION administers funds on behalf of other donors. The grants recorded as coming in are contributions into those funds, so they count custody rather than support for a programHELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION runs itself. This page therefore states the flows and does not draw the comparisons it would draw for an operating charity: concentration, funder retention, grant dependency and the peer field are all left out, because each of them would read a vehicle as if it were a program.
Paid out
$387k
Recipients
30
Contributions on record
$694k
Donors on record
8
Payments out are 0.56x the contributions on record, so the balance accumulates rather than passing straight through.
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.
- United Way of the Lewis and Clark Area Incshared fundersportfolio match
- Alice Lee Lund Charitable Trustshared funders
- Scholarship America Incportfolio match
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.
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: 2021 5% · 2022 78% · 2023 53% · 2024 38%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
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
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 5 funders, grant income rose $43k → $162k.
4 of 8 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 83% 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 HELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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.
Where its funders are
83% of HELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION'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 $118k that is directly attributable, 83% of it comes from funders outside Montana, across 2 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $576k arriving through sponsors registered in 4 statesis 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 8 funders put you under-funded among the 400 organizations that share them.
- United Way of the Lewis and Clark Area Incshared fundersportfolio matchMT · backs 15 organizations that share your funders · its grantees resemble your mission
- Alice Lee Lund Charitable Trustshared fundersMT · backs 21 organizations that share your funders
- Scholarship America Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Indiana Philanthropy Alliance Foundation Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Regional Opportunity Initiatives Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Rogue Credit Unionportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Independent Colleges of Indiana Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Indiana Philanthropy Alliance Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Chief Foundation Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Honorable Frank L & Arlene G Price Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Columbia Basin Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Council of Michigan Foundationsportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
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.
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
72% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
90%
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 HELENA AREA COMMUNITY 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. How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds HELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION?
- HELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION (Montana) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $694,417 to it, the largest being Montana Community Foundation Inc ($452,352). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 83% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly. HELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
- How many funders does HELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION have?
- IRS filings report 8 organizations giving $694,417 in grants to HELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of HELENA AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION?
- Montana Community Foundation Inc is the largest funder on record, with $452,352 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like HELENA AREA COMMUNITY 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 8funders 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