Colorado Longitudinal Study
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 815231484
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2019–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2018
- Location
- Fort Collins, CO, USA
- Phone
- 3037357112
- Rating
- 73
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Research Institutes and/or Public Policy Analysis
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $400,058
- Expenses
- $495,074
- Assets
- $56,333
- Liabilities
- $44,715
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
6 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- EVAN KING (BOARD VICE C): $51,000 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Advancing the health of people through advancing the science of medicine. The Colorado longitudinal study (cols) is building the world's most comprehensive longitudinal collection of biological specimens matched with clinical health and social determinants of health data. This data will enable researchers to study the complex relationships that determine health, leading to unprecedented advances in health, health care, and health equity.
What it reported doing in 2025
In 2025, cols continued to strengthen its organizational infrastructure and advance its mission through strategic partnerships, participant engagement, and program growth. Building on the successful leadership transition initiated in 2024, the organization maintained continuity across staff and board leadership while continuing to retain key talent and institutional knowledge. The board of directors and staff remained focused on expanding participant engagement within the cols program. A continued emphasis was placed on re- engaging prior participants to further strengthen the longitudinal impact and integrity of the study. These efforts supported sustained participant retention and enhanced the organization's ability to collect meaningful long-term data. During 2025, cols also expanded its external partnerships and collaborative initiatives. Most notably, cols began a collaboration with the clinton foundation to explore opportunities for increased community engagement, awareness, and support surrounding healthy aging and longitudinal research initiatives. In addition, cols continued its longstanding collaboration with Colorado state university's columbine health systems center for healthy aging (cha) and the human performance clinical research laboratory (hpcrl). The cha continued to provide a welcoming environment and infrastructure for participant visits, including access to clinical and participant processing facilities. Hpcrl staff continued to support the housing, monitoring, and processing of biological specimens while providing additional expertise and equipment as needed to support ongoing research operations. Cols also continued implementation and refinement of its fundraising and donor management systems to better capture, organize, and track an expanding pipeline of prospective donors and supporters. These efforts were undertaken to improve long-term sustainability and strengthen organizational capacity for future growth.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 100% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and a large share of available resources goes toward mission work. A relatively small share of total spending goes to programs and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 61
- Transparency & Controls: 92
- Accountability: 76
- Sustainability: 11
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 71%; rating input score 71
- Program expense ratio: 57.3%; rating input score 57
- Fundraising efficiency: $4.76 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 3 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 43
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: Limited
- Other executive compensation review process: Limited
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -23.8%; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.11; rating input score 8; 8th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.79; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 10.3%; rating input score 27; 27th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 18.3% per year; rating input score 100; 81st percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 3.1% per year; rating input score 100; 37th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 2.3% per year; rating input score 100; 32nd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 71% of revenue deployed · 57.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 6 of 6 board members independent · 3 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $284K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $51K · 6 people listed
- Consistency: 27 of 27 current checks pass
- Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
- Filing history: 7 filing years from 2019 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 57/100.
- Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 3 of 6 not reported.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 20/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 10/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 8/100.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 5/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 27/100.