Montana · Nonprofit
WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC
WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC (Montana) receives grants from 45 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,312,540 to it, the largest being Louis L Borick Foundation ($800,000). 30 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.4M
- Funders on record
- 45
- Grants received
- $2.3M
- Net assets
- $9.2M
What Watson Children's Shelter Inc does
Mission
Watson children's shelter is dedicated to providing a safe, nurturing, environment for children who have experienced abuse, neglect, abandonment or family crisis.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
The shelter was founded in 1977 and provides shelter in a safe, nurturing home to montana children, infant to age 14, who have experienced physical or sexual abuse, neglect, abandonment, or family crisis. The shelter provides a nurturing environment through the operation of two homes and is licensed under the regulations of the montana department of public health and human services quality assurance division. The homes welcome over 100 children annually and can welcome up to 16 children at one home and 12 children at the other home. Both homes are beautifully designed and provide a safe, welcoming, homelike atmosphere. The shelter accepts referrrals and placements from montana division of child and family services, trial social services, mental health centers, youth courts and private referrals. The shelter lead staff hold master's and bachelor's level degrees and all staff complete over 30 hours of annual training to effectively care for children from traumatic experiences.
$1,833,055 spent$780,244 earned by the program87% of program spendingThe healthy foundations home visiting program began in march of 2018, and is designed to work with at-risk families that present with various high-risk factors that are shown to be directly correlated to child abuse and neglect. Services are provided in the families' homes and can occur multiple times each week or as infrequent as once per month. The program accepts referrals from many sources throughout the community. Eligible families must be pregnant or within the first 90 days after the birth of a child. Healthy foundations has capacity for 30-40 families at any given time depending on the frequency of home visits required for each family. Funding for healthy foundations comes from fundraising events, grants, corporate and individual donors.
$274,326 spent$58,041 earned by the program13% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,107,381.
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 2020 to 2021, from $7.6M to $9.6M (+26%).
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: 2017 1% · 2018 1% · 2019 2% · 2020 4% · 2021 3% · 2022 14% · 2025 6%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
58% of WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (81% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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
Mark Roberts
Executive director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2020 and FY2021, and between the FY2024 and FY2025 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 15 funders to 20 funders, grant income fell $252k → $218k.
8 of 45 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 13% 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 WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 45 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
WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 35% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 30% · 2018 36% · 2019 47% · 2020 47% · 2021 48% · 2022 31% · 2023 46% — growing more concentrated.
“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
54% of WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 67% 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
WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC draws 60% of its grant income from funders outside Montana, across 12 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $311k arriving through sponsors registered in 7 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
WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC's revenue grew 52% between 2017 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 6,891 human services nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC
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 Montana
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
81% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
89%
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 WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC: 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 WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC?
- WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC (Montana) receives grants from 45 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,312,540 to it, the largest being Louis L Borick Foundation ($800,000). 30 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC have?
- IRS filings report 45 organizations giving $2,312,540 in grants to WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC, 30 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC?
- Louis L Borick Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $800,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Montana. 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 Watson Children's Shelter →
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 45 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