Healing Bridges
Public records show a registered, tax-exempt organization in good standing.
What it says it does
Healing Bridges works with traditional communities to create audiovisual products about their beliefs, engages in various forms of advocacy and other supporting activities in national and international arenas to protect and strengthen them, and bridge the gap between them and the modern world for mutual benefit. Current focus is with the traditional authorities (shamans) of the Kofan indigenous people in the Colombian Amazon with sporadic engagement with those of the Siona people.
- Income
- $103,819
- Spending
- $74,310
- Reserves
- 13.9 months of spending
- Largest source of income
- donations and private grants, 100%
- Highest pay
- $45,887, executive director
Source: Form 990EZ for the year ending December 31, 2025, filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Rating method 2026.2. How we rate
Financial health
Strong: 100 out of 100. Higher than 88% of charities in its peer group (international, under $250k).
Reserves
35 of 35Spendable reserves would cover 13.9 months of spending.
Debt
20 of 20It owes 0% of what it owns.
Living within its means
15 of 15Income exceeded spending by 28% of income.
Source: Form 990EZ for the year ending December 31, 2025, filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Rating method 2026.2. How we rate
Governance
This organization files the short tax form, which does not ask about boards, policies or audits. That is normal for a small charity and is not a mark against it.
Source: Form 990EZ for the year ending December 31, 2025, filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Rating method 2026.2. How we rate
Impact evidence
Describes programs. Its tax return describes what it does but we have found no measurable results in it.
Programs described in its return (3)
- $7,259 spent. I. Production of audiovisual products about traditional communities and beliefs. Healing Bridges produced a 5min 11sec video update, later converted into a Spanish language message for the members of the Asociación Ingi bupa semanba hunbachuha mendevi, the Kofan organization born out of the food security project by the same name that Healing Bridges helped found. The Ingi Bupa members sent Healing Bridges 542 project photos and 87 videos. During the November visit to the Kofan territory of Santa Rosa del Guamuéz, Healing Bridges videotaped 12.4 hours in 18 site visits, 3 meetings, and a workshop led by the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture for Ingi Bupa. We also took 32 photos and taped 26 short clips.
- $32,367 spent. II. Strengthening traditional communities. During 2025, Healing Bridges remained focused on Ingi bupa semanba hunbachuha mendevi, the food sovereignty project we began in August 2020 in the Kofan territory of Santa Rosa del Guamuéz. In November, Healing Bridges visited Santa Rosa and surveyed 18 project sites: five aquaculture sites, one proposed reservoir site, one proposed aquaculture site, four chicken coops, four children's gardens, one plantain grove, and two reforestation staging/site. We gathered with three Kofan Traditional Authorities, four Kofan grandmothers, and 16 other followers of traditional medicine and/or family members; in total 11 men and 12 women plus their children, 11 of whom are active Ingi Bupa participants. Healing Bridges also participated in four meetings and ceremonies of traditional medicine, and organized a full-day workshop for Ingi Bupa led by the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture. Healing Bridges provided $14,945 towards the Ingi Bupa project, a hallmark of which is the minga or collective work session (representing cultural recovery), supporting aviculture, aquaculture, and other agriculture. The eleven participating families carried out 29 mingas representing a total of 1,505 hours of voluntary labor (February 8 - December 8.) Of these 29 mingas, 15.5 were dedicated to planting, tending, and/or harvesting cacao, corn, plantain, chiro, and yuca; eight mingas refurbished aquaculture ponds and a reservoir; two repaired a road and created wood piles; two prepared grounds for tree planting; and 1.5 mingas improved chicken coops. Eleven children also participated in an average of 23 of the 29 mingas. All eleven children actively maintained their own chagras or indigenous gardens, often with the help of a dedicated time at regular mingas for children's mingas, in which they helped each other's chagras. Healing Bridges designed a field accounting mobile application prototype, received feedback from some of the Ingi Bupa members, began its coding via a developer, and presented screenshots to Ingi Bupa in November. The app is for generating field accounting information to generate a cost study. In October, the Asociación Ingi bupa semanba hunbachuha mendevi, the Kofan organization which we helped found in 2024, opened a bank account and turned one. During 2025, they held four organizational meetings. In a milestone, the Asociación received two wires from the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture to offset some of the costs incurred in facilitating the workshop. The members of the Asociación also contributed funds to the bank account to establish their patrimony. Healing Bridges supported the Asociación with $1,190 for its operating costs and government obligations. Healing Bridges remunerated $5,516 in indigenous labor, more than $950 of it in honoraria for their work in ceremonies of traditional indigenous medicine. Healing Bridges provided $571 for western medical treatment and associated support for a Kofan grandmother and the widow of a Kofan leader, and for the wake of a Kofan grandmother, Nora Matilde Queta, R.I.P. Healing Bridges received the final investigation report of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Social and Environmental Compliance Unit about the UNDP's 2021 "strategic alliance" fiasco with the oil company GeoPark.
- $9,365 spent. III. Bridging the gap between traditional communities and the modern world to ensure mutual benefit. Global warming threatens both the Kofan traditional and those in the global north where Healing Bridges is based and most of its friends live. Although the history of this relationship is contentious and exploitative because of oil, the two fates are now inextricably bound. Anything done to address global warming in either space helps the other. As the Kofan recognize: "if there is no planet, there is no territory," which is similar to the slogan "there is no planet b." Healing Bridges continues to engage with the organization Empowered by Light about our Climate Mitigation Pilot Project: protecting aquaculture with aerators powered by solar energy which would also power an improvement in water management. Healing Bridges wrote a white paper on its "carbon insetting" project or atonement for past Greenhouse Gas emissions via reforestation. With an investment of $1,302, Healing Bridges distributed 636 tree saplings to 21 Ingi bupa semanba hunbachuha mendevi participants. Healing Bridges began the process of documenting their location for future measurement by taking 76 photos with coordinates using the Conota Camera app and also with a Garmin handheld. Since decarbonization is more impactful in the global north where Healing Bridges is based, we use public transportation and take the train when we can, and we support and encourage decarbonization by getting involved locally. We have talked with regional energy monitors, participated in webinars focused on these issues at the state and national level, and received funding to address environmental protection at the local level. In September we featured the former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights' Representative in Colombia at a discussion on the "Spirituality of the Care of our Common Home." To inform our supporters of our work, in December Healing Bridges conducted 31 zoom gatherings reaching 115 individuals in five countries other than the U.S.A.; and within the U.S.A.: 26 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.
Source: Form 990EZ for the year ending December 31, 2025, filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Rating method 2026.2. How we rate
Legitimacy checks
Is it registered with the IRS? Passed.
Listed in the IRS master file of tax-exempt organizations as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
Source: Exempt Organizations Business Master File, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
Has the IRS revoked its tax-exempt status? Worth knowing.
Status was revoked on May 15, 2010 for not filing returns for three years, and reinstated on May 15, 2010.
Source: Automatic revocation of exemption list, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
Are donations tax-deductible? Passed.
On the IRS list of organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions.
Source: Publication 78 data: organizations eligible for tax-deductible contributions, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
Is it keeping up with its IRS filings? Passed.
Most recent return on file covers the year ending December 2025.
Source: Exempt Organizations Business Master File, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
How long has it been tax-exempt? Passed.
Recognized by the IRS since September 2016.
Source: Exempt Organizations Business Master File, Internal Revenue Service, file dated October 13, 2026.
Is it in good standing with state regulators? Passed.
Not on California's list of charities barred from soliciting. Other states are not yet checked.
Source: May Not Operate or Solicit for Charitable Purposes list, California Attorney General, Registry of Charities and Fundraisers, file dated October 21, 2026.
Ratings and checks are our reading of public records, using the published method. They are not a statement about anyone's honesty. If you work for this organization, you can send corrections or results, confirm you want gifts through Veridonate, or ask to be removed from giving.