· Private foundation
Ardean & Colleen Aafedt Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
98% of Ardean & Colleen Aafedt Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Schwab Charitable Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2019, the last year Ardean & Colleen Aafedt Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 6 organizations, $575k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2019
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $70k
- $250k+1 grant · $500k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Luther Seminary | $500,000 |
| Williston Parks & Recreation Foundation Inc | $25,000 |
| Cross Training | $15,000 |
| Williston State College Foundation | $10,000 |
| Evergreen Baseball Boosters Inc | $10,000 |
| Valley City State University Foundation | $10,000 |
| Williston School District #1 | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–17, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 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 +84% since the first grant, against -16% for the ones you funded once.
9 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2019, 4 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (too recent to call). Read against FY2019, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 18% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $23k 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
- CTCross Training7× · 2017–2024 · $95k · revenue +60%
- WPWILLISTON PARKS & RECREATION FOUNDATION INC3× · 2019–2021 · $65k · revenue +318% · 35% of their budget
- WCWILLISTON COMMUNITY BUILDERS2× · 2022–2023 · $30k · revenue +84%
Funded once
- ECEHS COUGAR TOUCHDOWN CLUBone grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue -39%
- SJSt Joseph's Catholic Schoolone grant, 2017 · $15k
- WCWILLISTON COYOTE FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $10k · revenue +78%
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.
The function of the north dakota university system foundation is to support, enrich, advance and improve higher education in the state of north dakota, and to assist its students, faculty and staff.
The School District 110 Foundation provides scholarship-based financial support to qualifying Waconia High School graduating seniors preparing to enter colleges, universities, technical, trade, or vocational schools. Additional financial…
Encourage bequests and donations for the benefit of students and the educational programs of winona state university
The organization's purpose is to annually honor scholastic achievement by awarding scholarships to willmar senior high students to be used for their post secondary education.
To promote, assist, and extend financial support to western dakota technical college and the students thereof by providing scholarships, grants, and financial aid.
Building enduring relationships that maximize advocacy and philanthropy to support North Dakota State University.
The purpose for which this association is organized is to foster, encourage and promote the development of the soccer skills of players living in central north dakota under the age of 20.
Williston Baseball Boosters, Inc. is organized to support the athletes, parents, coaches, and administrative staff of The Williston Middle High School Baseball program by raising funds, conducting events, and recruiting volunteers.
Advancing student success through partnerships with the community and Sheridan College.
Support of western wyoming community college programs and scholarships
To support the students attending the music and drama programs in the Williston Basin School district #7.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Williston State College Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Ehs Cougar Touchdown Club. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 29 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 DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds Cross Training ↗
- Who funds WILLISTON PARKS & RECREATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Evergreen Baseball Boosters Inc ↗
- Who funds WILLISTON COMMUNITY BUILDERS ↗
- Who funds VALLEY CITY STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WILLISTON STATE COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST NORTH DAKOTA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds EHS COUGAR TOUCHDOWN CLUB ↗
- Who funds POSITIVE COACHING ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds WESTERN STAR LITERACY CENTER ↗
- Who funds WILLISTON COYOTE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Williston Basin Skating Club Inc ↗
- Who funds BETHEL LUTHERAN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DAKOTA FAMILY SOLUTIONS ↗
- Who funds TETON BOOSTER CLUB INC ↗
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: Buck and Lois Scheele Foundation · American Legion 37 Edgar M Boyd · Williston Convention and Visitors Bureau · Oneok Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 Ardean & Colleen Aafedt 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.