Colorado · Nonprofit
The YESS Institute
The YESS Institute (Colorado) receives grants from 34 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,098,958 to it, the largest being COLORADO GIVES FOUNDATION ($361,907). 17 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 51% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.2M
- Funders on record
- 34
- Grants received
- $2.1M
- Net assets
- $287k
What The YESS Institute does
Mission
YESS Institute builds inclusive learning communities to support students on their Road to Success.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Form 990, Part Ill, Line 4a - Program Service AccomplishmentsWithin its mission to build inclusive learning communities to support students on their road to success and its School Engagement Model, YESS served 900 unduplicated youth at Denver Public Schools: Kennedy HS, Lincoln HS, North HS, Skinner MS, Lake MS Westminster Public Schools: Orchard Park Academy, Shaw Heights MS, Tennyson Knolls, Westminster High School. Our post-secondary success director provided post-secondary planning and support for a total of 65 youth in the YESS Institute high schools. YESS family advocates within Denver Public Schools supported +200 families with food, necessary resources, supplies and financial support. YESS Institute collaborated with community agencies to provide necessary supplies to families. Further, the agency partnered with other local, state and national youth development agencies, schools and the Denver police department providing its emotional intelligence training to benefit a larger community. In addition, YESS Institute partnered with the Denver Office for Children's Affairs to develop a virtual version of the Healthy Lifestyles Cannabis, Vaping and Opioid educational curriculum…
$1,108,337 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,108,337.
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 2024 to 2025, from $698k to $401k (−43%).
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 14% · 2022 19% · 2023 17% · 2024 34% · 2025 61%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
70% of The YESS Institute’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (13% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 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.
Board chair
Theresa Klava
Chairman
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 6 funders to 14 funders, grant income rose $78k → $321k.
10 of 34 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 51% 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 YESS Institute’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 34 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 YESS Institute 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
66% 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 YESS Institute.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 43% · 2018 30% · 2019 25% · 2020 29% · 2021 28% · 2022 44% · 2023 25% — 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
59% of The YESS Institute's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 50% 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
51% of The YESS 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 $1.0M that is directly attributable, 61% of it comes from Colorado funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.1M arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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 YESS Institute's revenue grew 77% between 2017 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,767 recreation & sports nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like The YESS 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
78% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
85%
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 The YESS 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 The YESS Institute?
- The YESS Institute (Colorado) receives grants from 34 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,098,958 to it, the largest being COLORADO GIVES FOUNDATION ($361,907). 17 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 51% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does The YESS Institute have?
- IRS filings report 34 organizations giving $2,098,958 in grants to The YESS Institute, 17 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The YESS Institute?
- COLORADO GIVES FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $361,907 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The YESS 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 YESS Institute →
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 34 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