Colorado · Nonprofit
The Alliance Center
The Alliance Center (Colorado) receives grants from 38 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,317,508 to it, the largest being THE DENVER FOUNDATION ($3,424,551). 18 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 76% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.9M
- Funders on record
- 38
- Grants received
- $6.3M
- Net assets
- $5.7M
What The Alliance Center does
Mission
The Alliance Center brings people together to develop and advance solutions for an inclusive, regenerative future.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
The Alliance Center is civic infrastructure, stewarding shared space that brings sustainability leaders into proximity and supports ongoing collaboration. The Alliance Center Building itself has served as a living laboratory for advancing clean technologies, and it's also a shared workspace and event space at the heart of Colorado's sustainability ecosystem since 2004. Today it's an all-electric, 8-times LEED-certified historic building that is home to 44 tenant organizations, the majority of which are nonprofits, receiving below-market rent. In 2025, the Alliance Center hosted 127 events reaching 3,700+ attendees. See Schedule OThe Alliance Center also hosts a Hard-to-Recycle station open to the community, diverting nearly 10,000 lbs. of food waste and 2,500+ lbs of hard-to-recycle materials from landfills and earning a 100 ENERGY STAR score against a national median of 50 in 2025.
$1,385,721 spent$1,211,402 earned by the program80% of program spendingThe Alliance Center connects and convenes sustainability professionals through robust programming that builds relationships, collaboration, and effectiveness. In 2025, the Alliance Center hosted a Signature Event series, a regular Jobseekers Meetup Group, a green jobs board, an online community, and Free Community Coworking Days, among other events. 73% of community members reported the Alliance Center supported a stronger change ecosystem, 70% felt like stronger, more effective change agents, and 25% reported increased collaboration. The Alliance Center also supports Collective Impact partnerships; for example, it partnered with the Colorado Department of Transportation in 2025 to expand clean-transportation career pathways for students and job seekers through the Cleantech Workforce Pathways Program.
$350,874 spent$26,069 earned by the program20% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,736,595.
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. 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 2021 to 2022, from $15M to $13M (−14%).
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: 2020 13% · 2021 22% · 2023 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
36% of The Alliance Center’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue 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. 5 of the last 9 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.
Chief executive
Alison Carlman
Executive Director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 5 funders to 18 funders, grant income fell $1.2M → $610k.
8 of 38 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 76% 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 The Alliance Center’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 38 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
The Alliance Center leans on a few funders — its largest provides 54% of grant income and the top three 66%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
79% 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 The Alliance Center.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 89% · 2018 97% · 2019 76% · 2020 52% · 2021 25% · 2022 20% · 2023 44% — 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
45% of The Alliance Center's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 47% 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
76% of The Alliance Center'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 $1.5M that is directly attributable, 88% of it comes from funders outside Colorado, across 16 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $4.8M arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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
The Alliance Center is better cushioned than half of the 1,209 environment nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,209 environment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like The Alliance Center
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
80% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
86%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Alliance Center LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for The Alliance Center: 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 The Alliance Center?
- The Alliance Center (Colorado) receives grants from 38 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,317,508 to it, the largest being THE DENVER FOUNDATION ($3,424,551). 18 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 76% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does The Alliance Center have?
- IRS filings report 38 organizations giving $6,317,508 in grants to The Alliance Center, 18 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The Alliance Center?
- THE DENVER FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $3,424,551 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The Alliance Center 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 Alliance Center →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 38 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing