· Private foundation
Alex Stern Family Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k51 grants · $231k
- $10k–50k17 grants · $210k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $113k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| IMPACT FOUNDATION | $112,500 |
| OAK GROVE LUTHERAN SCHOOL | $25,000 |
| ANGELS HOCKEY CLUB | $25,000 |
| RED RIVER REGIONAL MARKSMANSHIP CEN | $15,000 |
| HANDI-WHEELS TRANSPORTATION INC | $15,000 |
| HOPE BLOOMS | $10,000 |
| AMERICAN GOLD GYMNASTICS | $10,000 |
| JEREMIAH PROGRAM FARGO MOORHEAD | $10,000 |
| TNT KID'S FITNESS | $10,000 |
| SANFORD HEALTH FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| LEND A HAND UP INC | $10,000 |
| HOSPICE OF THE RED RIVER VALLEY | $10,000 |
| LANDON'S LIGHT FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| SMALL WONDERS PRESCHOOL & CHILD CAR | $10,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY20–25, $313k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +19% since the first grant, against +3% for the ones you funded once.
90 repeat relationships — 44 still active in FY2025, 46 since wound down; 23 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $137k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- LLLANDON'S LIGHT FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2025 · $50k · revenue +86%
- GPGreat Plains Food Bank5× · 2020–2024 · $40k · revenue +14%
- TKTNT Kid's Fitness4× · 2020–2025 · $40k · revenue +4%
Funded once
- FPFargo Park District Foundationone grant, 2024 · $20k · revenue 0%
- SHSOLUTIONS HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALSone grant, 2021 · $20k
- PFPAUL FISHER-CAPSTONE CLASSICALone grant, 2022 · $15k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Guided by our values, Catholic Charities North Dakota serves people in need and advocates for the common good of all.
North Dakota Assistive delivers services to people with disabilities so they can get the assistive technology they need for work, school, and home.
Children's mental health
NDACo provides leadership and services to foster effective and efficient government for the good of all counties.
Building enduring relationships that maximize advocacy and philanthropy to support North Dakota State University.
Providing support for people in achieving success in their life and their community.
We are a professional association of long term care and community service providers who enhance the lives of people we serve through collaboration, education and advocacy.
It is the mission of the Odd Fellows Home to be a "Place Where Somebody Cares." This has been the motto off Odd Fellows Home since the 1925 dedication. The Odd Fellows Home's mission is to provide a comfortable and pleasant atmosphere as…
Easter Seals Goodwill ND, Inc. is a leading organization in supporting children, adults, and families to have equal opportunities to live, learn, work, and play in their communities.
Committed to improving the wellness of families.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of North Dakota and the most unlike its peers is Tellegacy Coporation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 19 years old; the field is 20. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 11% of your grantees by number, and just 5% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 10% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
84 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 84 of the 162 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds Impact Foundation ↗
- Who funds Handi-Wheels Transportation Inc ↗
- Who funds LANDON'S LIGHT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Great Plains Food Bank ↗
- Who funds TNT Kid's Fitness ↗
- Who funds HALEY'S HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds Red River Childrens Advocacy Center ↗
- Who funds American Gold Gymnastics ↗
- Who funds FARGO-MOORHEAD ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds BIO Girls Inc ↗
- Who funds CAPSTONE CLASSICAL ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds THE OUTDOOR ADVENTURE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds JEREMIAH PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF MINOT ↗
- Who funds Community of Care ↗
- Who funds MOORHEAD SCHOOLS LEGACY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RED RIVER DANCE AND PERFORMING COMPANY ↗
- Who funds University of Jamestown ↗
- Who funds PEACE OFFICER JAIL CHAPLAINS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Share House Inc ↗
- Who funds LEARNING BANK INC ↗
- Who funds University of Mary ↗
- Who funds GOOSEBERRY PARK PLAYERS ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Fargo-Moorhead Area Foundation Corporation · Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota Caring Foundation · The Barry Foundation · Dakota Medical Foundation · Midcontinent Foundation · Offutt Family Foundation · Sanford Group Return · Impact Foundation · Otto Bremer Trust · North Dakota Community Foundation · Fred M Hector Jr Charitable Trust · United Way of Cass-Clay
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Alex Stern Family Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Alex Stern Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Alex Stern Family Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.