Colorado · Nonprofit
ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST
ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST (Colorado) receives grants from 6 organizations whose IRS filings report $202,184 to it, the largest being COLORADO GIVES FOUNDATION ($152,333). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 86% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $103k
- Funders on record
- 6
- Grants received
- $202k
- Net assets
- $228k
What Rocky Mountain Best does
Mission
Rocky Mountain BEST provides a forum for youth to develop technical and life skills through a robotics program in which youths participate in teams in Middle and High Schools under the guidance of Teachers and Mentors from their local community to design and build competition robots.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Programs
Part III, line 28- The Hub Program provides, at no cost to students, hardware and software components and technical assistance to teachers and schools who choose to participate in the BEST robotics program. We host the local competition event. In 2025 we offered an event with portions online and the robotics competition in person. We had 22 teams competing involving 220 students with 150 volunteers.
$44,901 spent59% of program spendingPart III Line 29 - The Regional Competition Program hosts an event for approximately 395 high achieving students from 26 teams from 8 Hubs in 6 states. Students participated in a robotics competition and also delivered Engineering Notebooks that were judged online. They were also judged in person with Marketing Presentations and Trade Booths where they were interviewed about their "company and it's product (their robot)". Trophies and medallions were given to the top teams in each judged portion of the event. We had more than 80 volunteers helping with this event.
$29,528 spent39% of program spendingPart III, line 30 - Our third largest program is the Teacher Mentor Institute Program. In this program, we expose the teachers who are newer to the BEST program to techniques that will help them mentor their students to a more successful season. They learn about the software that is given to their teams, learn about all the parts of the BEST program, including building a robot, and the writing an Engineering Notebook. The teachers/mentors receive 3 free days of training, and also can request Continuing Education credits. We were able to offer this program to 17 teachers/mentors during 2025 at no cost to participants. 12 Volunteers helped with this program.
$1,367 spent2% of program spendingPart III, line 31 - We have two other small programs. The first helps establish new hubs in the state, helping them get on their feet. When we find an organization or people who are interested in creating a hub, we train them in what it takes to run a hub. We help them throughout their first season (and sometimes more). Front Range BEST and Pikes Peak BEST are examples of Hubs we have helped. The second program is an outreach program to let educators, students, and parents know about Rocky Mountain BEST and its programs. During 2025, these programs spent a total of $333.
$333 spent0% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $76,129.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2020, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2020, 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 $167k to $213k (+28%).
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.
93% of ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (83% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 6 reported years ran a deficit.
Leadership and staff
Chief executive
Jose Lopez
Executive Director, Board of Directors
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 4 funders, grant income rose $13k → $32k.
3 of 6 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 86% 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 ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST’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
ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST leans on a few funders — its largest provides 75% of grant income and the top three 95%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
86% 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 ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 96% · 2018 100% · 2019 70% · 2020 94% · 2021 96% · 2022 71% · 2023 60% — 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
86% of ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST'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 $29k that is directly attributable, 69% of it comes from Colorado funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $173k 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
ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 3,482 youth development nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,482 youth development nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST
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
93%
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 ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST: 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 ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST?
- ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST (Colorado) receives grants from 6 organizations whose IRS filings report $202,184 to it, the largest being COLORADO GIVES FOUNDATION ($152,333). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 86% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST have?
- IRS filings report 6 organizations giving $202,184 in grants to ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST, 6 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST?
- COLORADO GIVES FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $152,333 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEST 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 Rocky Mountain Best →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2020–2025), and the filings of 6 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