· Private foundation
Donald Weesner Charitable Tr Ua
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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $80k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $222k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GREAT RIVER GREENING | $61,000 |
| WILDLIFE REHABILITATION CENTER | $60,000 |
| WOLF RIDGE ENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING CENTER | $51,000 |
| THOMAS IRVINE DODGE NATURE CENTER | $50,000 |
| TWIN CITIES PBS | $35,000 |
| TRUE FRIENDS | $25,000 |
| GREAT LAKES AQUARIUM | $20,000 |
| LAKE SUPERIOR ZOO | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 83% of your 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.
28 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 20 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 FY2024, 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
- MZMINNESOTA ZOO FOUNDATION7× · 2017–2023 · $448k · revenue +158%
- WRWILDLIFE REHABILITATION CENTER OF MINNESOTA7× · 2017–2024 · $394k · revenue +133%
- WRWOLF RIDGE ENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING CENTER3× · 2019–2024 · $313k · revenue +2%
Funded once
- WRWILDLIFE REHAB CENTER OF MNone grant, 2022 · $146k
- TTPTone grant, 2022 · $35k
- EIEAGLEWATCH INCone grant, 2019 · $25k · revenue +16%
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.
Schlitz audubon nature center conserves our land's diverse habitats on lake michigan and provides meaningful experiences and environmental education for all.
It is our mission at huron pines to conserve and enhance northern michigan's natural resources to ensure healthy water, protected places and vibrant communities. for alomst 50 years, our work across the forests, lakes and streams of…
The wildlife society's mission is to inspire, empower, and enable wildlife professionals to sustain wildlife populations and habitats through science-based management and conservation.
Inspiring communities to save wildlife for future generations.
Create relationships & experiences that welcome and inspire people to discover, enjoy, value, and care for nature. Kalamazoo Nature Center envisions a resilient community where all people have strong interconnections with the natural world.
Maintain the swan valley's unique natural resources and ensure that a vibrant human community can sustain itself through stewardship, education, economic viability, and conservation on public and private lands.
The mission of wild rivers conservancy of the st. croix & namekagon is to inspire stewardship to forever ensure the rare ecological integrity of the st. croix and namekagon riverway. the conservancy of the st. croix and namekagon works…
Conservation minnesota's mission is to turn our shared conservation values into state priorities and provide you with the information you need to make decisions for your family, community and future.
The mission is "to understand the natural world and inspire everyone to care for it." the academy implements its mission through understanding the diversity of life; developing and applying science to protect the environment; and informing…
The international wolf center uses science-based education to teach and inspire the world about wolves, their ecology, and the wolf-human relationship.
Hawk mountain sanctuary association's mission is to conserve birds of prey worldwide by providing leadership in raptor conservation science and education, and by maintaining hawk mountain sanctuary as a model observation, research, and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Minnesota Zoo Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Boys Girls Club. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 50 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 43 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 COURAGE KENNY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA ZOO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds WILDLIFE REHABILITATION CENTER OF MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds WOLF RIDGE ENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING CENTER ↗
- Who funds SCIENCE MUSEUM OF MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds GREAT RIVER GREENING ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds MINNEAPOLIS SOCIETY OF FINE ARTS DBA MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS ↗
- Who funds THOMAS IRVINE DODGE NATURE CENTER ↗
- Who funds TRUE FRIENDS ↗
- Who funds TWIN CITIES PUBLIC TELEVISION INC ↗
- Who funds LAKE SUPERIOR CENTER ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE GENERATION ↗
- Who funds HARTLEY NATURE CENTER ↗
- Who funds EAGLEWATCH INC ↗
- Who funds BELWIN CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds COMO FRIENDS ↗
- Who funds ARROWHEAD ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds HAWK RIDGE BIRD OBSERVATORY INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE PRAIRIE WETLANDS LEA ↗
- Who funds BOYS GIRLS CLUB ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA LANDSCAPE ARBORETUM FOUNDATION ↗
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: Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · The Minneapolis Foundation · Ch Robinson Worldwide Foundation · Longview Foundation · Lloyd K Johnson Foundation · Hugh J Andersen Foundation · Minnesota Power Foundation · Hardenbergh Foundation · The K Foundation · Pohlad Family 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 Donald Weesner Charitable Tr Ua 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.