· Public charity
Center of the American Experiment
Center of the American Experiment is a nonpartisan public policy and educational institution that brings conservative and free market ideas to bear on the hardest problems facing Minnesota and the nation.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Upper Midwest Law Center | $50,000 |
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 (FY21–23, $68k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +57% since the first grant, against -52% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- TPTURNING POINT USA INC6× · 2018–2023 · $664k · revenue +967%
- UMUPPER MIDWEST LAW CENTER6× · 2019–2025 · $610k · revenue +258% · 31% of their budget
- PUPRAGER UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION5× · 2019–2023 · $564k · revenue +222%
Funded once
- SJSchaerr Jaffeone grant, 2024 · $100k
- MPMINNESOTA PARENTS ALLIANCEone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue -52%
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.
To teach and disseminate educational materials to the public.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
The liberal patriot (tlp) is a digital newsletter focused on american politics and public policy. tlp aims to provide readers with honest analysis and original commentary to help advance a vital center perspective in american life.
To educate journalists and the public, and foster public debate, about improving political journalism to reflect public needs and hold the powerful accountable.
The manhattan institute is a community of scholars, journalists, activists, and civic leaders dedicated to advancing opportunity, individual liberty, and the rule of law in america and its great cities.
The american enterprise institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise. aei pursues these ideals through independent thinking and the…
Pro publica is an independent, non-profit, pulitzer prize-winning newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories. [see continuation on schedule o] we produce…
The union works to advocate and advance a public policy agenda to support and protect the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of iowa. it works to maintain throughout the united states the rights of free…
1. provide independent student journalism and comprehensive coverage of news, media and events that serve the public interest and inform the university of minnesota community.2. offer a forum for the free exchange of ideas and civil debate…
Public agenda strengthens american democracy by connecting research to action enabling people and institutions to pursue changes that make a difference. we amplify the voices of americans and help communities discover and build on common…
The foundation works to defend and promote the constitution of the united states, focusing especially on the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and 14th amendments. the foundation also works to defend and promote the constitution of the…
Free press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. we believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Judicial Watch Inc and the most unlike its peers is Take Charge Minnesota. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 14 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 TURNING POINT USA INC ↗
- Who funds UPPER MIDWEST LAW CENTER ↗
- Who funds PRAGER UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DAVID HOROWITZ FREEDOM CENTER ↗
- Who funds ALPHA NEWS ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA VOTERS ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds JUDICIAL WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds THE BLEXIT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds TAKE CHARGE MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds ALPHA KAPPA PSI SCHOLARSHIP FUND ↗
- Who funds BADGER INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA PARENTS ALLIANCE ↗
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: Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving 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 Center of the American Experiment 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.