· Private foundation
Bentson 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $320k
- $50k–250k16 grants · $1.6M
- $250k+6 grants · $12M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION | $7,097,369 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CALIF SANTA BARBARA | $3,105,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD NORTH CENTRAL STATES | $450,000 |
| AUGUSTANA UNIVERSITY | $420,000 |
| LOBERO THEATRE | $250,000 |
| UPMC CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $250,000 |
| ACLU OF MN FOUNDATION | $225,000 |
| IOWA LAW SCHOOL FOUNDATION | $200,000 |
| DULUTH REGIONAL CARE CENTER | $125,000 |
| CHABAD JEWISH CENTER | $100,000 |
| FRIENDS OF EDUCATION | $100,000 |
| NEW IMPACT FUND | $100,000 |
| UNICEF | $100,000 |
| INDIANA UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE | $100,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $1.5M) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 99% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +37% since the first grant, against +10% for the ones you funded once.
85 repeat relationships — 20 still active in FY2025, 65 since wound down; 17 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, 65% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4.8M 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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2025 · $10M · revenue +105%
- SHSECOND HARVEST HEARTLAND3× · 2020–2024 · $1.8M · revenue +31%
- PAPRODEO ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOL #42139× · 2017–2025 · $1.3M · revenue +432%
Funded once
- AHALLINA HEALTH SYSTEMone grant, 2024 · $2.5M · revenue 0%
- UOU OF M - COMMUNITY-UNIVERSITY HEALTH CARE CENTERone grant, 2024 · $1.0M
- UUSCBone grant, 2019 · $500k
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 minnesota business partnership's mission is to maintain a high quality of life for all minnesotans by ensuring that the state's economy remains strong, globally competitive and its prospects for growth bright by working with elected…
MCF is a vibrant philanthropic community connecting, strengthening and mobilizing the power of philanthropy to advance prosperity and equity.
To be the leading voice of medicine to make minnesota the healthiest state and the best place to practice.
To provide the highest level of stewardship for university donors through professional management and oversight of the university of minnesota foundation's assets by creating a focused investment environment with clarity of purpose,…
The minnesota chamber of commerce proactively leads the business community statewide to: advance pro-business, responsible minnesota public policy that creates jobs and grows the econony; provde member services to address evolving business…
The minnesota land trust protects and restores minnesota's most vital natural lands in order to provide wildlife habitat, clean water, outdoor experiences and scenic beauty for generations to come.
Creating powerful advocacy to enhance economic vitality in the minneapolis-st. paul region.
Mn community measurement empowers stakeholders with meaningful information to drive improvement.
Providing innovative and life-enriching services for children, adolescents, and adults with disabilities.
United way of northeastern minnesota invests in nonprofits, programs, and collaborations that equip and empower, creating opportunities for people to thrive in our communities.
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Minneapolis Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Santa Cruz Island Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 34 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 17% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
125 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. 125 of the 221 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ALLINA HEALTH SYSTEM ↗
- Who funds REGIONS HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST HEARTLAND ↗
- Who funds PRODEO ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOL #4213 ↗
- Who funds WALKER ART CENTER ↗
- Who funds PEOPLE INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds HOPE ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AUGUSTANA UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Washburn Center for Children ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD NORTH CENTRAL STATES ↗
- Who funds FRASER ↗
- Who funds NAMI MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PITTSBURGH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WINONA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TOUCHSTONE MENTAL HEALTH ↗
- Who funds AMHERST H WILDER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds UC SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DULUTH REGIONAL CARE CENTER 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: Otto Bremer Trust · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · The Minneapolis Foundation · The Richard M Schulze Family Foundation · Pohlad Family Foundation · Fr Bigelow Foundation · The Walser Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · Greater Twin Cities United Way · The Sauer Family Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Medica 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 Bentson 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.
- Western Rivers Conservancy — 0% of income from government
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 Bentson Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Bentson 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.