Dakota Foundation is a Colorado Springs private foundation officially described by current and archived first-party pages as founded in 1997 by A. Bart Holaday. It describes its mission as helping people achieve self-sufficiency through education, work, entrepreneurship, business discipline, grants, program-related investments, and social-impact finance.
In the Colorado Springs education corpus, Dakota is most important as a civic-philanthropic seed-capital node rather than as a simple charter-school actor. The strongest retained source chain runs from Dakota Promise private funding in Harrison School District 2, to the voter-funded D2 Promise public program, to the Promise for All replication layer involving Pikes Peak State College, Legacy Institute, and Dakota President / CEO Kelsey Nolan. For D11 specifically, the retained direct ties are a D11 Teacher Impact Award grant / match and a Mitchell Promise scholarship commitment that official D11 materials later frame as the origin of D11 Promise, a districtwide PPSC scholarship program supported by Bruni Foundation, Dakota Foundation, Legacy Institute, and PPSC. Personal Bart / Cathy Holaday D11 candidate contributions are a separate campaign-finance layer.
The founder layer needs careful language. Dakota's own pages name Bart Holaday as founder. The same pages and UND / Rhodes sources make Lynn Holaday an important founding-era executive and instrumental establishment / growth figure, but they do not supply a first-party founder label for her. Treat Lynn as founding-era executive / unresolved co-founder question unless formation records are retrieved.
Dakota Foundation Dtd 122997 Holaday A Bart Ttee.36-7213554.PO BOX 50971, Colorado Springs, CO 80949.1999-07-01.$29,098,283; total revenue per books $5,015,369; grants paid $524,769; program-related investments $550,000.$29 million, has made more than $7.2 million in grants, and has made more than $4.8 million in PRIs to more than 200 nonprofits.Dakota and Rhodes sources preserve Bart Holaday's self-description around helping people help themselves, expanding opportunity, improving self-sufficiency, using business discipline, avoiding dependency / handouts, and supporting entrepreneurship. This is the strongest source class for founder motivation.
Dakota's grant / PRI model, Dakota Venture Group support, UND entrepreneurship work, Exeter and Air Force Academy scholarship commitments, Dakota Promise / D2 Promise, Mitchell Promise / D11 Promise, and Promise for All are documentary evidence consistent with the self-description. They support a catalytic-philanthropy mechanism but do not prove a D11 political or governance motive.
UND and Rhodes institutional biographies characterize Bart Holaday as an entrepreneur, asset manager, venture-capital figure, public servant, and philanthropist. Legacy Institute repeats a shorter biography in its current board roster. These are useful biography sources, not direct evidence of D11 intent.
It is reasonable to interpret Dakota's Promise work as an expression of Bart Holaday's stated self-sufficiency / opportunity / business-discipline model. It is not supported to infer coordination with Steve Schuck, sponsorship of Parents Challenge, D11 governance control, or a charter / labor strategy from that model without stronger records.
Dakota's 2019 article says PPCC, Dakota Foundation, Legacy Institute, and Harrison School District 2 created Dakota Promise and that Dakota would fund the pilot for three years. Current D2 materials say Dakota Promise private funding began in 2020, program management shifted to D2 in 2023, D2 voters approved a mill levy in 2024, and the first publicly funded first-dollar Promise program launched in 2025. Promise for All then presents D2 Promise as the replication model and lists Kelsey Nolan among the leaders guiding the new Promise Fellowship.
Relationship type: philanthropic partnership, grant / scholarship support, replication-model leadership.
Evidence strength: direct for public partnership statements and leadership listings; unresolved for grant agreements, MOUs, fund administration, and the Promise for All seed-funding source.
Current and archived Legacy Institute evidence lists Bart Holaday and Kelsey Nolan as Legacy board members, and Dakota / Legacy / PPSC / Harrison D2 pages describe Dakota Promise / D2 Promise partnership surfaces. Dakota's 2019 Dakota Promise article also uses the unresolved Legacy Foundation phrase for additional funding while later describing Legacy Institute. Follow-up D11 / PPSC sources repeatedly name Legacy Institute rather than Legacy Foundation, and Bruni Foundation's 2024 990-PF OCR shows a separate $50,000 education grant to Legacy Institute.
Relationship type: board service / nonprofit affiliation / philanthropic education-project partnership.
Evidence strength: direct for board overlap, public partnership claims, and Bruni-to-Legacy grant evidence; unresolved for direct Dakota grants to Legacy Institute or a separate Legacy Foundation entity.
Dakota's official activities page and 2024 rendered filing support a $22,000 grant to D11 for a Teacher Impact Award. D11's June 4, 2025 minutes record Superintendent Michael Gaal thanking Dakota Foundation for teacher support.
Relationship type: grant relationship / public acknowledgment.
Evidence strength: direct. Claim limit: this does not by itself support a charter, governance, labor, or policy-influence claim.
Dakota's official activities page says PPSC is collaborating with D11 to bring a Promise program to Mitchell High School and that Dakota granted $25,000 per year for up to five years, totaling $125,000, for 2023-2027. The 2024 filing lists Pikes Peak Community Foundation, not PPSC, for one scholarship-purpose row tied to low-income and low-performing Colorado Springs school districts. D11's May 17, 2023 Mitchell Promise packet says D11 would cover 50 percent up to $200,000 and PPSC, through Dakota Foundation, would cover 50 percent up to $200,000; the attached D11 / PPSC memorandum says PPSC invoices D11 twice annually and will identify philanthropic support through PPSC Foundation for the PPSC-side share. D11's September 14, 2023 board communication says Mitchell Promise became the districtwide D11 Promise Scholarship Program, with Bruni Foundation, Dakota Foundation, Legacy Institute, and PPSC named as partners. The November 29, 2023 board packet retained D11's $200,000 annual MLO cap and named Bruni Foundation, Dakota Foundation, D11, and PPSC as collaborators for the expanded program. A later finance-records pass confirms PPSC Foundation as a general Colorado Opportunity Scholarship Initiative (COSI) matching-scholarship node and PPSC's current D11 Promise last-dollar description, but not a D11-specific COSI / PPSC Foundation / PPCF route.
Relationship type: scholarship / grant support / public pathway partnership.
Evidence strength: direct for Dakota self-description, D11 approval and expansion statements, the original D11 / PPSC MOU, and filing-purpose rows; unresolved for Dakota versus PPSC Foundation versus Pikes Peak Community Foundation fiscal administration, especially after the D11-wide expansion.
The current source set does not support a direct Dakota Foundation relationship with Parents Challenge. The follow-up filing screen does show Pikes Peak Community Foundation made a $26,000 2023 education grant to Parents Challenge, while Dakota's 2024 filing separately lists scholarship-purpose grants to Pikes Peak Community Foundation. That makes PPCF a live routed-path lead, but it is not evidence that Dakota funded Parents Challenge.
Relationship type: unresolved adjacency / negative bounded screen; separate intermediary grant lead through Pikes Peak Community Foundation.
Evidence strength: unresolved for Dakota-to-Parents; direct for PPCF-to-Parents. Claim limit: the bounded screen does not rule out older, indirect, routed, or differently named support, but current evidence still does not support a Dakota-to-Parents flow.
Founder-specific relationship limit: the 2026-04-28 founder pass found no direct Steve Schuck relationship to Bart Holaday, Lynn Holaday, Catharine Holaday, or Dakota Foundation. It did confirm a weaker Legacy Institute board-surface relationship: Deborah Hendrix is listed with Parents Challenge on the same current Legacy board page that lists Bart Holaday and Kelsey Nolan with Dakota Foundation roles. That is shared personnel / board-service adjacency through Legacy, not evidence of Dakota-to-Parents funding, Steve Schuck coordination, or foundation sponsorship.
The retained TRACER screen supports personal Holaday-family political contributions, not Dakota Foundation political spending:
$2,500 to ELECT PARTH MELPAKAM on 2023-10-26.$2,500 each to DR. RUEHL FOR D11, FRIENDS OF MR. COLE, and PARENTS FOR JEREMIAH on 2025-10-06.Dakota Foundation as an entity or for Kelsey Nolan in the searched 2019-2026 contribution slices.Do not cite these rows as foundation grants, independent expenditures, coordination, policy influence, or D11 governance control. They are direct personal campaign-contribution facts and should be kept in the campaign-finance lane.
| source node | target node | tie type | time range | mechanism | possible flow type | evidence strength | claim limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Bart Holaday | Dakota Foundation | founder / chair leadership / substantial-contributor filing layer | 1997-present source set | foundation establishment, board leadership, family philanthropy | organizational identity, founder philosophy, philanthropic capital | direct | Formation documents and original trust instrument not retrieved |
| Lynn Holaday | Dakota Foundation | founding-era executive director / instrumental support | 1997-2010 | early foundation management and philanthropic partnership | operational capacity, mission continuity, family-governance legitimacy | direct for role; unresolved for formal co-founder status | Current Dakota pages do not label her founder |
| Dakota Foundation | Dakota Promise / D2 Promise | philanthropic partnership / grant support | 2019-2025 source set | private seed funding, scholarship support, coaching model | money, program capacity, legitimacy | direct | Agreements, fund records, and public-finance authorization not retrieved |
| Dakota Promise / D2 Promise | Promise for All | replication model | 2025-2027 planned | fellowship, seed funding, coaching, financial modeling | model transfer, expertise, legitimacy | direct for public page | Seed-funding source unresolved |
| Kelsey Nolan | Promise for All | advisory / leadership role | 2025-2027 planned | Promise Fellowship guide | expertise, legitimacy | direct | No Dakota Foundation funding terms shown |
| Bart Holaday / Kelsey Nolan | Legacy Institute | board service / nonprofit affiliation | 2022-2026 source set | board membership, partnership pages | legitimacy, governance, civic network | direct | No direct Dakota-to-Legacy grant row found in 2020-2024 decoded filing screen |
| Dakota Foundation | Colorado Springs School District 11 | grant relationship | 2024-2025 | Teacher Impact Award | money, recognition | direct | Not policy-control or charter evidence |
| Dakota Foundation / Bruni Foundation / Legacy Institute / PPSC | D11 Promise | scholarship / pathway partnership | 2023-present source set | Mitchell Promise expansion to all D11 graduates | money, college pathway, legitimacy | direct for official D11 partner statement and D11 MLO approval | Agreements and outside payment routes remain unresolved beyond the original Mitchell MOU |
| Dakota Foundation | Mitchell High School / PPSC / PPCF | scholarship support | 2023-2027 stated | Mitchell Promise | money, college pathway | direct / strong | PPSC / Pikes Peak Community Foundation administration unresolved |
| Bruni Foundation | Legacy Institute | grant relationship | 2023 tax year / filed 2025 | Form 990-PF education grant | money | direct | Purpose line says education only; no Promise for All restriction shown |
| Pikes Peak Community Foundation | Parents Challenge | grant relationship | 2023 | Form 990 Schedule I education grant | money | direct | Not a Dakota-to-Parents flow without fund records |
| Bart / Cathy Holaday | D11 candidate committees | campaign contribution | 2023 and 2025 | personal contributions | money to campaigns | direct | Not Dakota Foundation organizational spending |
| Deborah Hendrix / Parents Challenge | Bart Holaday / Kelsey Nolan / Dakota Foundation | shared Legacy Institute board surface | current 2026 capture | board-service co-listing on Legacy page | legitimacy / civic network adjacency only | direct for co-listing | Not Steve Schuck relationship, Dakota funding, or Parents Challenge sponsorship |
| Dakota Foundation | Parents Challenge | unresolved adjacency | bounded 2020-2024 / 2026 screen | no direct flow found | none supported | unresolved / negative bounded check | Older, indirect, routed, or differently named support not ruled out |
Legacy Foundation phrase a mistake for Legacy Institute, a shorthand for a Legacy-controlled fund, or a separate funding entity?COSI) records explain the reported D11 Promise funding stack? The D11 board-packet layer now shows PPSC invoicing D11 for the original Mitchell Promise and PPSC Foundation philanthropic support language, while the finance-records pass confirms PPSC Foundation's general COSI role, but not a complete expanded-program route.$50,000 grant to Legacy Institute?