· Private foundation
David & Janis Larson Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $8k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $190k
- $50k–250k23 grants · $2.7M
- $250k+11 grants · $5.5M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE SANNEH FOUNDATION | $1,301,500 |
| KANSAS UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENT ASSOCIATION | $1,051,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA ATHLETICS | $600,000 |
| REDWOOD AREA LIBRARY FOUNDATION | $500,000 |
| CENTRAL SQUARE CULTURAL AND CIVIC CENTER | $350,000 |
| KANSAS UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENT ASSOCIATION | $350,000 |
| YMCA OF THE NORTH | $300,000 |
| ST CROIX VALLEY FOUNDATION | $300,000 |
| POPE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $250,000 |
| PINKY SWEAR FOUNDATION | $250,000 |
| KANSAS UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENT ASSOCIATION | $250,000 |
| VOYAGEUR OUTWARD BOUND SCHOOL | $230,000 |
| THE PINKY SWEAR FOUNDATION KANSAS CITY | $200,000 |
| REDWOOD HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $200,000 |
| WASHBURN CENTER FOR CHILDREN | $150,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $7.6M) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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 +48% since the first grant, against +10% for the ones you funded once.
30 repeat relationships — 27 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 14 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 78% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.8M 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
- TKThe Kansas University Endowment Association5× · 2020–2024 · $8.5M · revenue +64%
- VOVOYAGEUR OUTWARD BOUND SCHOOL5× · 2020–2024 · $4.6M · revenue +37%
- TSTHE SANNEH FOUNDATION2× · 2023–2024 · $1.5M · revenue +48%
Funded once
- COCITY OF REDWOOD FALLS LIBRARYone grant, 2023 · $500k
- ATALEXANDRIA TECHNOLOGICAL AND COMMUNITY COLLEGEone grant, 2022 · $400k
- MUMANKATO UNIVERSITY MINNESOTAone grant, 2023 · $50k
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.
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.
Ensure camp fire minnesota's strong future. with nature as the catalyst, camp fire minnesota energizes youth to discover their spark so their futures glow brighter.
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 northland foundation supports northeastern minnesota people and communities working toward a future where everyone feels they belong and can thrive.
The foundation cultivates generosity by taking action on the greatest civic, social, and economic needs partnering with nonprofits, facilitating grantmaking, driving research and advocacy, and providing services to donors seeking to make a…
Creating powerful advocacy to enhance economic vitality in the minneapolis-st. paul region.
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,…
We believe that great schools are the cornerstone of a just and thriving community. ensuring that every child is able to attend a school that works is our moral and social imperative - our children deserve no less.
The minnesota state fair foundation's mission is to preserve and improve the historic minnesota state fairgrounds and support state fair programs and projects in agriculture, arts & culture, education, the environment, and history.
Mn community measurement empowers stakeholders with meaningful information to drive improvement.
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Camp Fire Minnesota and the most unlike its peers is Pope County Historical Society. 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 30 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) — 4% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 52 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 The Kansas University Endowment Association ↗
- Who funds PINKY SWEAR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VOYAGEUR OUTWARD BOUND SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ST CROIX VALLEY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE SANNEH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds POPE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF THE NORTH ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AAHS DECA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GUTHRIE THEATER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Washburn Center for Children ↗
- Who funds CAMP FIRE MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds FOOD FOR HUNGRY MINDS ↗
- Who funds The Children's Mercy Hospital ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA ASSISTANCE COUNCIL FOR VETERANS ↗
- Who funds THE GRIEF CLUB OF MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds EVERY THIRD SATURDAY INC ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA MILITARY FAMILY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S CANCER RESEARCH FUND ↗
- Who funds CAPABLE PARTNERS 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: Greater Kansas City Community Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · The Minneapolis Foundation · The Richard M Schulze Family Foundation · Constance M Cooper Charitable Foundation · Lamb Weston Charitable Foundation · Otto Bremer Trust · Xcel Energy Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · National Philanthropic Trust
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 David & Janis Larson 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.