Colorado · Nonprofit
HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES
HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES (Colorado) receives grants from 28 organizations whose IRS filings report $981,871 to it, the largest being THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY ($170,000). 20 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $292k
- Funders on record
- 28
- Grants received
- $982k
- Net assets
- $233k
What High Country Conservation Advocates does
Mission
High Country Conservation Advocates is a grassroots non-profit dedicated to protecting the health, integrity, and beauty of the public lands, waters, and wildlife of colorados gunnison country.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
WATER PROGRAM Preserving the quantity and quality of water flowing in the rivers and streams of the Upper Gunnison River Basin is critical to maintaining clean drinking water, healthy riparian ecosystems, aquatic life, and recreational and aesthetic values. The High Country Conservation Advocates (HCCA) water program has worked for over thirty years to protect and enhance the water resources of the Gunnison River Basin against threats from trans-mountain diversion, mining pollution, overuse and mismanagement. We engage with water users at the local level to generate good water management and regulations to protect water quality.
$7,784 spent$12,000 earned by the program5% of program spendingPUBLIC LANDS PROGRAM From high rugged mountain faces to rolling sage brush flats, HCCA works to ensure that these special places are protected and conserved. For nearly 50 years, the Public Lands Program has played a key role in local and regional stakeholder groups,advocating for conservation within forest management, watershed planning, wildfire protection, tourism, and drought resilience efforts. HCCA advocates for conservation solutions to elected officials, government decisions makers and staff, other interested organizations, and the local community using a spectrum of tools from direct relationships, to participation in community planning processes, writing formal letters, and by publishing essays in local newspapers. We also lead collaborative efforts like the Gunnison Public Lands Initiative, which has resulted in broad stakeholders consensus to recommend protections for thousands of acres of public land-recommendations now advancing in Congress as part of the Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection Act.
$110,217 spentof which $1,560 as grants$95,460 earned by the program73% of program spendingSAVING RED LADY ON AUGUST 29,2024, HCCA achieved a final and historic victory in its 47 year fight to save Mt Emmons (locally known to locals as the Red Lady) from mining. With cooperation Mt Emmons Mining Company(MEMC) and the community, HCCA secured the following (1) an Extinguishment Agreement for the Mineral and Development Rights on 885 acres of MEMC private land on Red Lady; (2) MEMC relinquished over 1100 mining claims on public lands in Gunnison County; (3)in a Land Exchange, MEMC exchanged several properties with the USFS that would be intergral for any future mine and those properties are now public lands; (4) the Thompson Divide/Mt Emmons Mineral Withdrawal prohibits new mining for twenty years on Red Ladys public land.
$31,411 spent$9,871 earned by the program21% of program spendingSTEWARDSHIP-HCCAs Stewardship Program works collaboratively with land management agencies and community organizations to address climate resiliency through the coordination of on the ground stewardship projects. These volunteer driven projects connect and educate the local community through restoring the health and ecological resiliency of our shared public lands.
$920 spent$21,220 earned by the program1% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $150,332.
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.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2021 to 2022, from $252k to $192k (−24%).
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 30% · 2022 5%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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 6 funders to 15 funders, grant income rose $41k → $173k.
7 of 28 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 19% 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 HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES’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.
How concentrated its funding is
HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 17% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
50% 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 HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 37% · 2018 59% · 2019 46% · 2020 29% · 2021 38% · 2022 30% · 2023 20% — 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
56% of HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 71% 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
HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES draws 87% of its grant income from funders outside Colorado, across 12 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $186k arriving through sponsors registered in 4 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.
Government funding HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $35k on record.
- Department of the Interior$35k
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 HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES
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
63% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
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 HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES: 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 HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES?
- HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES (Colorado) receives grants from 28 organizations whose IRS filings report $981,871 to it, the largest being THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY ($170,000). 20 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES have?
- IRS filings report 28 organizations giving $981,871 in grants to HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES, 20 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES?
- THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY is the largest funder on record, with $170,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like HIGH COUNTRY CONSERVATION ADVOCATES 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 FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 28 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