Colorado · Nonprofit
Protect Our Rivers
Protect Our Rivers (Colorado) receives grants from 4 organizations whose IRS filings report $104,786 to it, the largest being AMERICAN ONLINE GIVING FOUNDATION INC ($73,476). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 87% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $161k
- Funders on record
- 4
- Grants received
- $105k
- Net assets
- $86k
What Protect Our Rivers does
Mission
The purpose of Protect Our Rivers is to protect and restore through active conservation education and access.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Programs
We increase the attendance and impact of our river cleanup events. We hosted 32 events with over 2800 volunteers and removed 88,000 pounds of trash from rivers and streams. We extended our efforts to three states and conducted a 2nd elementary school cleanup with 100 5th-grade students. Planning for three programs in 2026 we sustained impact during the Executive Directors maternity leave.
$97,032 spent88% of program spendingWe increased our education efforts through informational events and shows and educating youth on sources of pollution and their impact on water quality. We also raised general awareness about river health through in-school presentations and implemented new measures for expanding this program in the new year with additional safety precautions.
$8,756 spent8% of program spendingWe implemented another river access program and got18eighteen 5th-grade girls out on the water for a cleanup and their very first whitewater rafting trip. We also laid the groundwork to run three river access programs next year on Clear Creek the Poudre River and the Arkansas River.
$4,536 spent4% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $110,324.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2021, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2021, 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 at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2021 to 2022, from $9k to $43k (+398%).
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.
100% of Protect Our Rivers’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (88% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 5 reported years ran a deficit.
Leadership and staff
Chief executive
Sarah Nelson
Executive Director
Board chair
Scott Coe
Chairman of the Board
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Who funds it, year by year
2022 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 2 funders, grant income fell $17k → $11k.
2 of 4 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 87% 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 Protect Our Rivers’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
Protect Our Rivers leans on a few funders — its largest provides 70% of grant income and the top three 98%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
87% 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 Protect Our Rivers.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2022 100% · 2023 61% — 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.
Where its funders are
87% of Protect Our Rivers'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 $14k that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from funders outside Colorado, across 2 states.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $91k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 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
Protect Our Rivers has grown faster than three-quarters of the 2,433 environment nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,433 environment nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like Protect Our Rivers
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.
Public support
100%
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 Protect Our Rivers: 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 Protect Our Rivers?
- Protect Our Rivers (Colorado) receives grants from 4 organizations whose IRS filings report $104,786 to it, the largest being AMERICAN ONLINE GIVING FOUNDATION INC ($73,476). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 87% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Protect Our Rivers have?
- IRS filings report 4 organizations giving $104,786 in grants to Protect Our Rivers, 2 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Protect Our Rivers?
- AMERICAN ONLINE GIVING FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $73,476 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Protect Our Rivers 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.
Play a game about who funds Protect Our Rivers →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2021–2025), and the filings of 4 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