It had mainly been a means for a few skiers to contribute to the UAFC by holding occasional fundraising events. It can also purchase and own certain equipment for use by UAFC personnel and pay backcountry observers. Without the existence of this framework the situation would have been far more difficult. In the spring of 1993 an announcement was made on the forecast telephone line and a special meeting was held. A board of directors was formed and plans were made to compensate for the USFS cuts.
Support comes from users of the service, local businesses, and county government.
The state government will also contribute to the budget of the UAFC beginning this year. In order to get an idea of how funding might be diversified the sources of funding for the four major regional avalanche forecasting organizations in the US are compared. The Colorado Center and the NW Center both receive large amounts of money from state transportation departments, but these funds are omitted here because only the non-highway functions are of interest. Figure 1 and Figure 2 show the sources of funding for the past two seasons in chart form. The figures used here depend somewhat on how things are categorized, particularly the number of funding sources.