How much does Cremer Foundation give?

Cremer Foundation reported 18 grants totaling $362,111 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 14 and 18 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does Cremer Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Human Services (31%), Education (23%), Youth Development (12%).

Who are Cremer Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Briarpatch Youth Services Inc ($161k), Bayview Foundation Inc ($150k), The Salvation Army ($140k).

Does Cremer Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 36% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Cremer Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as Cremer Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Madison Gas and Electric Foundation Inc, Madison Community Foundation, The Evjue Foundation Inc.

Where is Cremer Foundation based?

Cremer Foundation is based in MN.

Cremer Foundation

Cremer Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Cremer Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$362k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$50k

Largest

01What it funds

0194% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Human Services$643kEducation$482kYouth Development$246kHealth$173kHousing & Shelter$150kFood & Nutrition$100kEmployment$85kArts & Culture$50kOther$0

02FY2025 · 18 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k4 grants · $15k
$10k–50k13 grants · $297k
$50k–250k1 grant · $50k

$20,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.2M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
BAYVIEW FOUNDATION	$50,000
OPERATION FRESH START	$40,000
BRIARPATCH YOUTH SERVICES	$35,000
THE SALVATION ARMY	$35,000
SUN PRAIRIE EAST HIGH SCHOOL	$32,000
THE RIVER FOOD PANTRY	$30,000
SUNSHINE PLACE	$25,000
GOODMAN COMMUNITY CENTER	$25,000
EAST MADISON COMMUNITY CENTER	$20,000
GIFT TO UNITYPOINT HEALTH MERITER FOUNDA	$15,000
CREMER FOUNDATION INC	$10,000
YWCA	$10,000
SPECIALTY CARE FREE CLINIC	$10,000
HORIZON HIGH SCHOOL OF MADISON	$10,000
FIRST TEE SOUTH CENTRAL WISCONSIN	$5,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY20–25, $383k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 8% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

78%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.6M · 24 repeat orgs$452k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +29% since the first grant, against 0% for those funded once.

24 repeat relationships: 12 still active in FY2025, 12 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.6M

$382k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+29%

Still filing today

67%

39%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $70k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Human ServicesHealthEducationCrime & LegalPhilanthropyFood & NutritionOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

BY
BRIARPATCH YOUTH SERVICES INC
5× · 2020–2025 · $161k · revenue +29%
IA
IRWIN A AND ROBERT D GOODMAN COMMUNITY CENTER INC
4× · 2022–2025 · $100k · revenue +12%
MADISON AREA TECHNICAL COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC
3× · 2020–2023 · $90k · revenue +39%

Funded once

OC
ONE CITY SCHOOLS INCgraduated
one grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue +47%
OC
ONE CITY SCHOOLS FOUNDATION INC
one grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue -65%
TC
THE COLONIAL CLUB
one grant, 2021 · $50k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Madison Professional Police Officers Association Inc

The madison professional police officers association represents law enforcement professionals who serve the city of madison, wisconsin, as either police officers, detectives, investigators, or sergeants.

—

Goodwill Industries of South Central Wisconsin Inc

Goodwill of south central wisconsin's mission is to help people in our community to live, work and thrive through housing, employment and supportive services. see schedule o for continuationsupported employment and job skills training are…

Employment

Midwest Dairy Association

Midwest dairy works with others to give consumers an excellent dairy experience increasing sales, fostering innovation, and inspiring consumer confidence of dairy products and practices.

—

Community Care Health Plan Inc

Community care health plan's mission is to develop and demonstrate innovative, flexible, community-based approaches to care for at-risk adults, in order to optimize their quality of life and optimize the allocation of community resources.

Health

Wisconsin School Counselor Association Inc

Our vision is for wisconsin to be the model for excellence in equitable school counseling practice, exemplified by the advocacy, leadership, and expertise of the members of the wsca.

—

Dane County Parent Council Inc

Dane county parent council changes the lives of underserved children and families through education and supportive services.

Education

Disability Rights Wisconsin Inc

Legal protection and advocacy to protect the rights of people with disabilities in wisconsin.

—

Wisconsin Policy Forum Inc

We conduct impartial public policy research and analysis to drive informed debate and effective decision-making in the state of wisconsin.

Public Benefit

Downtown Madison Inc

Make downtown madison an economically strong, equitable, inclusive, and vibrant place to live, work, and visit.

—

Cap Services Inc

Cap services, inc.'s mission is to transform people and communities to advance social and economic justice.

Human Services

Mid-Iowa Community Action Inc

Mica helps families experencing poverty meet their needs, build on their strengths, and achieve their goals.

Community Improvement

Pathways of Wisconsin Inc

Pathways of wisconsin provides supported employment opportunities and empowerment through quality, person-centered programming for individuals of all abilities.

Human Services

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is CHAMPIONS4KIDS Inc; the most unlike its peers is Domestic Abuse Intervention Services Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

24 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 24 of the 48 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

24/24

Grantees still filing

16/24

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,102,171Human Services$383,000Education$185,000Crime & Legal$161,000Food & Nutrition$85,000Employment$85,000Philanthropy$72,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Madison Gas and Electric Foundation IncWI48.9× affinity21 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Madison Gas and Electric Foundation Inc · Madison Community Foundation · The Evjue Foundation Inc · United Way of Dane County Inc · The Roots and Wings Foundation Inc · Sub-Zero Group Foundation Inc · Trustage Foundation Inc · Ascendium Education Solutions Inc · Green Bay Packers Foundation · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · The Oscar Rennebohm Foundation Inc · Veridian Foundation Inc

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Cremer Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Cremer Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

12report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–30%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Cremer Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Cremer 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.

Play a game based on Cremer’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home