This source cluster addresses a narrower question than whether Colorado Dawn spent money: what the public record currently shows about where Colorado Dawn got its money.
The answer is asymmetric. Public IRS / ProPublica material shows large Colorado Dawn 501(c)(4) contribution totals, but the public Schedule B contributor table is restricted and does not name the original donors. Colorado TRACER and OpenFEC identify named receipts into Colorado Dawn's state and federal political committees, but those receipts are much smaller than the nonprofit's reported revenue and often list COLORADO DAWN itself as the contributor.
The strongest current conclusion is therefore: Colorado Dawn appears to be a dark-money nonprofit and committee hub whose public filings show scale and downstream grants / political transfers, while the original donor source behind the largest nonprofit funds remains unresolved.
Public ProPublica / IRS records support the following organization-level contribution or gift totals:
| Year | Source basis | Contributions / gifts or grants received |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Retained ProPublica API profile note | $415,750 |
| 2022 | Retained ProPublica API profile note | $5,945,705 |
| 2023 | Prior-year column in the retained 2024 Form 990 | $3,501,131 |
| 2024 | Retained 2024 Form 990 / ProPublica current profile | $7,439,700 |
Those totals identify scale, not original donors. The retained 2024 Form 990 indicates Schedule B was required, but the public Schedule B contributor name, address, and total contribution fields are shown as restricted.
The retained 2024 Colorado Dawn Form 990 reports:
$7,439,700$7,439,700$2,163,100$5,317,575$2,232,464 and consulting $376,850The retained Schedule I page lists these domestic grants:
| Recipient label in retained filing | EIN in retained filing | Address cue in retained filing | Amount | Current reconciliation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
CSSNC |
92-0462934 |
100 EAST ST VRAIN ST SUITE 105, Colorado Springs |
$935,000 | Strongly corroborated as Colorado Springs Safe Neighborhood Coalition, though the filing text itself uses only the acronym |
SENATE MAJORITY FUND |
45-1353357 |
2318 CURTIS STREET, Denver |
$550,000 | Corroborated by 2024 TRACER counterparty slice for Senate Majority Fund IEC |
COLORADO DAWN IEC |
92-0762934 |
100 EAST ST VRAIN STREET SUITE 105, Colorado Springs |
$128,100 | Same named state independent-expenditure vehicle; amount differs slightly from the 2022-2024 TRACER self-funding subtotal |
WELD STRONG |
not extracted in this note | not extracted in this note | $400,000 | Corroborated by TRACER transaction slice and committee-detail page |
COLORADANS FOR ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNME |
not extracted in this note | not extracted in this note | $150,000 | Corroborated by matching TRACER transaction slice for COLORADANS FOR ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT; Form 990 label remains truncated |
This is important for the reallocation hypothesis because it shows Colorado Dawn supporting a mixed set of lanes: a Senate candidate-support vehicle, its own independent-expenditure committee, local ballot infrastructure through the strongly corroborated CSSNC row, Weld regional candidate infrastructure, and a mixed state / local / school-board candidate-support vehicle. It does not support a clean "abandonment of candidate elections" interpretation.
The new Colorado Dawn IEC TRACER slice covers 2022 through 2026 for CO_ID 20225043758. TRACER returned 17 contribution rows and 28 expenditure rows, with final accounting totals of $173,488.00 in contributions and $225,916.75 in expenditures after excluding amended-original rows.
Final, non-amended contribution sources in the slice:
| Contributor label | Amount |
|---|---|
COLORADO DAWN / same Saint Vrain address |
$130,088 |
OUR COMMUNITY OUR FUTURE |
$23,500 |
PROTECT OUR KIDS |
$10,400 |
DIANE SMETHILLS |
$5,000 |
CHARLES MCNEIL |
$3,000 |
JOY HOFFMAN |
$1,000 |
MARY MARGARET WRIGHT |
$500 |
The COLORADO DAWN subtotal includes a corrected $125,000 2022 contribution, a $1,189 2023 contribution, a $100 2024 contribution, and a $3,799 2024 in-kind row whose explanation identifies Colorado Dawn as federal Super PAC registration C00826743.
These rows provide named committee-level receipts. They do not identify the original donors behind the 501(c)(4)'s multi-million-dollar contribution totals.
The OpenFEC capture for Colorado Dawn's federal committee, C00826743, shows:
$17,978.80$74,000.00$0.00 in the endpoint responseThe Schedule A endpoint returned three itemized receipt rows, all with contributor name COLORADO DAWN: $17,978.80 on 2022-10-20, $50,000.00 on 2024-04-19, and $24,000.00 on 2024-10-22.
This federal layer confirms self-referential receipts into the federal Super PAC record. It does not disclose an ultimate donor source.
Existing address-census campaign-finance work shows Colorado Dawn as both a donor / contributor and a recipient across state, municipal, and federal records:
2020-12-08 total $3,997,790.42 from Colorado Dawn.$1,805,555.50.$128,000.00 from Colorado Dawn to Springs Opportunity Fund and $128,000.00 from Springs Opportunity Fund to Cole Communications.$300,000 contributor to Voter Approval of Property Tax Increases.Those downstream records show where Colorado Dawn money went. They do not, by themselves, show where Colorado Dawn's original donor money came from.
OUR COMMUNITY OUR FUTURE and PROTECT OUR KIDS, need separate direct-record passes before they are treated as donor conduits, advocacy organizations, or durable entities.COLORADANS FOR ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNME is visibly truncated in the retained public rendering; the matching TRACER transaction slice supports COLORADANS FOR ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT as the practical reconciliation, but not as literal Form 990 text.CSSNC / EIN 92-0462934 in this pass. Municipal records make the Colorado Springs Safe Neighborhood Coalition mapping strong, but not perfectly text-reconciled from the Form 990 alone.