Rocky Mountain Land Library
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 203196971
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2018–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2015
- Location
- Denver, CO, USA
- Phone
- 3126130933
- Rating
- 80
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Land Resources Conservation
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $186,973
- Expenses
- $152,661
- Assets
- $458,767
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
9 people listed
People named in this filing
- Helen Thorpe (Secretary)
- Matthew Miller (Treasurer)
- Kathy Borgen (Director)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The Rocky Mountain Land Library's mission is to nurture the human spirit through the transformative power of nature, community, and books.
What it reported doing in 2025
The Land Library completed a strategic planning retreat and the Board approved a 2025-27 Strategic Plan. Our partnership course with the CU Boulder Environmental Design program was completed, culminating with a campus exhibition of student work in March. Work at Buffalo Peaks Ranch continues to progress, including: ongoing CO State OEDIT tax credits reporting, expanded ranch maintenance with a new caretaker, ongoing work with a pro bono attorney and Aurora Water to secure future commercial water rights for the full 3-phase ranch rehabilitation, work with a CU Denver graduate student intern on historic preservation grants research, hiring a new contract grant writer focused on ranch fundraising, and re-starting summer programming during the summer - engaging over 75 attendees across 8 events. The ranch's 2024 Master Plan was featured as the April 2025 cover story for Landscape Architecture Magazine. We earned grants from the America 250 / Colorado 150 Commission, the Denver Foundation, and Park County Historic Preservation Advisory Commission. We exceeded our 2025 year-end fundraising goal, raising just over $125,000. The Land Library hired a contract library consultant to start a strategic cataloguing effort and to create a collection development policy. We started a partnership with Boulder Bookstore to co-sponsor ongoing author talks related to natural history topics, beginning with Bill McKibben and Terry Tempest Williams. In October, we launched our Friends Group with our first major fundraising event. We added three new members to our Board of Directors: Annie Lawson (attorney at Haynes Boone), Joe Davidson (State of CO demography office), and Joe McCullough (COO at National Western Center Authority).
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 97% 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
STRONG - The filed numbers largely add up and a large share of total spending goes to programs. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 62
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 75
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 57.4%; rating input score 57
- Program expense ratio: 70.3%; rating input score 70
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 18.4%; rating input score 69; 69th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.01; rating input score 89; 89th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 74; 74th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 21.9% per year; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 12.4% per year; rating input score 100; 70th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 15.9% per year; rating input score 100; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 57.4% of revenue deployed · 70.3% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $107K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 9 people listed
- Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 6 filing years from 2018 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: Resolved incoming and outgoing counterparties from filed money flows.
- Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
- 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: Mission deployment rate scored 57/100.