The Denver-based Boettcher Foundation announced grant recipients for its 2018 education and cultural initiatives this week, distributing $650,000 to five nonprofit organizations in Colorado.

Recipients included the Denver Art Museum, Denver Botanic Gardens, University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business, Clayton Early Learning and the Qualistar Colorado Capital Fund.

Four of the five grants — $200,000 for the Denver Botanic Gardens, $150,000 for the Denver Art Museum, $75,000 to the University of Colorado Boulder and $75,000 to Clayton Early Learning — will go towards construction and renovation projects.

“The Denver Botanic Gardens and Denver Art Museum are some of our state’s flagship cultural institutions,” said Kristi Arellano, Boettcher communications director. “We are excited to support their efforts to grow and evolve so they can continue to serve our communities.”

The Qualistar Colorado Capital Fund, which is sponsored in part by the Boettcher Foundation, received $150,000 to help smaller organizations that “lack the budgets necessary for capital improvements and don’t have the capacity for large capital campaigns,” Arellano said.

The Boettcher Foundation is an endowment-funded charity worth approximately $300 million. It was incorporated in 1937 by Claude Boettcher, son of Charles Boettcher, who the Colorado State Library describes as one of the state’s “most successful early businessmen.”

Charles and his brother Herman moved from Germany to the United States in 1869, where they worked at a hardware store they later bought and expanded into a chain across Colorado. They later moved into manufacturing, electricity, real estate, agriculture and more.