Colorado · Nonprofit
WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER
WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER (Colorado) receives grants from 44 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,708,714 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($2,491,270). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 84% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.6M
- Funders on record
- 44
- Grants received
- $4.7M
- Net assets
- $10M
What Wild Bear Nature Center does
Mission
For 27 years, Wild Bear Nature Center has helped children and adults forge lifelong connections to nature through creative exploration of the outdoors. Specializing in mountain ecology, wild bear welcomes visitors to its hands-on nature center and provides year-round educational programs for people of all ages. Wild Bear Nature Center inspires a lifelong connection to nature and community through creative exploration of the outdoors since 1997. We are key partners in the preservation of mud lake open space and in 2000 we organized the community to remove 30 tons of trash making it one of the healthiest wetland habitats in boulder county. Wild bear is now in a capital campaign to build its permanent home on its five acres at mud lake and caribou ranch open spaces and completed development design of the nature center.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Children's workshops: Wild Bear Nature Center provides children ages 5-15 with educational opportunities outside of school hours; after-school, days off, and all summer. Wild bear is a cccap (colorado child care assistance program) provider and 49% of participants are identified as low-income and access programs through cccap and donor supported scholarships. In 2021-22, wild bear provided programs for children during the summer and during the school year. Provided 240 programs to 1,780 children who explored the indial peaks wilderness, mud lake and caibou ranch open spaces, and other surrounding natureal areas. School programs: wild bear provides natural science programs to surroundind school districts at mud lake or at the nature center. Provided 20 school group programs to 656 children. Intergenterational familty programs and visitation: the free interim nature center, located in a commercial space, is open while the official nature center is being constructed engaging people of all ages in hands-on nature exhibits. Wild bear provided 59 adult/family programs to 1,541 participants and enjoyed 23,348 general visitors to the free nature center.
$487,959 spent$144,501 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $487,959.
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 $7.7M to $11M (+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: 2017 9% · 2019 8% · 2020 3% · 2021 4% · 2022 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
95% of WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER’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. 0 of the last 8 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
Corky Dineen
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 19 funders, grant income rose $49k → $668k.
15 of 44 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 84% 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 WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 44 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
WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER leans on a few funders — its largest provides 53% of grant income and the top three 64%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
85% 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 WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 51% · 2018 60% · 2019 48% · 2020 80% · 2021 78% · 2022 25% · 2023 30% — 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
18% of WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 59% 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
84% of WILD BEAR NATURE 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 $752k that is directly attributable, 55% of it comes from Colorado funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $4.0M 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
WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters 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 WILD BEAR NATURE 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
58% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
62%
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 WILD BEAR NATURE 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 WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER?
- WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER (Colorado) receives grants from 44 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,708,714 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($2,491,270). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 84% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER have?
- IRS filings report 44 organizations giving $4,708,714 in grants to WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER, 26 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $2,491,270 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WILD BEAR NATURE 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 Wild Bear Nature 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 44 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