Colorado · Nonprofit
SARARA INSTITUTE
SARARA INSTITUTE (Colorado) receives grants from 54 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,535,309 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($1,437,738). 22 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 70% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $2.4M
- Funders on record
- 54
- Grants received
- $7.5M
- Net assets
- $420k
What Sarara Institute does
Mission
The sarara foundation operates across three key pillars: education & health, wildlife & conservation, and enterprise development
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Education: - tsf's nomadic education program provides early childhood education to the samburu community via mobile montessori school, ensuring culturally relevant pedagogy that meets the contextual needs of the community's nomadic lifestyle. - 15 year vision: provide a pathway for education that sets generations up to prosper and steward their own land by launching nomadic montessori schools and supporting transition into higher levels of education.
$195,527 spent$91,707 earned by the program9% of program spendingHealthcare: - tsf nomadic and localized healthcare support is designed to focus on delivering high-quality pediatric and maternal care to the indigenous samburu community in northern kenya. - 15 year vision: expand reliable and flexible preventative care across namunyak conservancy by launching mobile healthcare units, partnering with local healthcare providers, and expanding education within the community of holistic health solutions.
$107,075 spent5% of program spendingConservation: - tsf protects the 850,000 acre namunyak conservancy via the work of the reteti elephant sanctuary to protect wildlife and provide a local economy and by ensuring the land health and biodiversity is thriving. - 15 year vision: ensure land and biodiversity thrive in harmony with humans via care, restoration and preservation by supporting the rehabilitation of degraded land, protecting and providing emergency care to the wildlife.
$1,990,730 spentof which $892,083 as grants87% of program spendingSarara promotes self governance, capacity building, and leadership training at a community level. Sarara supports the employement of 56 wildlife rangers, 7 eco rangers, 12 administrative staff, 24 grazing team members, and 108 elephant keepers. Our 2024 accomplishments include the following: - 13 elephant orphans successfully re-wilded from reteti elephant sanctuary - over 3,000 mothers and children treated in 2024 through the mobile healthcare program - 185 students ages 3-6 were enrolled in the nomadic education program, with almost 50% being girls - 55,000usd awarded in bursaries for the graduating children to continue their education. - 1,280 samburu women generated 398,000 in income through the milk-to- market program where samburu women sell their goats milk to reteti elephant sanctuary - as of 2024, reteti elephant sanctuary has overseen the return of the free-ranging population of 6,000 elephants
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,293,332.
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 2022 to 2023, from $240k to $584k (+144%).
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.
95% of SARARA INSTITUTE’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (88% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 5 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
2018 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 23 funders, grant income rose $408k → $1.3M.
17 of 54 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 70% 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 SARARA INSTITUTE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 54 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
SARARA INSTITUTE has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 19% 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
78% 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 SARARA INSTITUTE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2018 98% · 2020 52% · 2021 45% · 2022 23% · 2023 23% — 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
75% of SARARA INSTITUTE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 41% 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
70% of SARARA INSTITUTE'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 $2.2M that is directly attributable, 77% of it comes from funders outside Colorado, across 23 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $5.3M arriving through sponsors registered in 11 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
SARARA INSTITUTE has grown faster than three-quarters of the 2,186 environment nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,186 environment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like SARARA INSTITUTE
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
89% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
73%
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 SARARA INSTITUTE: 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 SARARA INSTITUTE?
- SARARA INSTITUTE (Colorado) receives grants from 54 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,535,309 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($1,437,738). 22 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 70% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does SARARA INSTITUTE have?
- IRS filings report 54 organizations giving $7,535,309 in grants to SARARA INSTITUTE, 22 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SARARA INSTITUTE?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $1,437,738 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SARARA INSTITUTE 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 Sarara Institute →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2020–2024), and the filings of 54 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