· Public charity
East Central Regional Arts Council
The EAST CENTRAL REGIONAL ARTS COUNCIL's purpose is to promote and encourage all of the arts in east central minnesota.
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.
The 24 grants below total $402,959 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $481,923 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $78,964 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k4 grants · $32k
- $10k–50k19 grants · $310k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $60k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WYOMING AREA CREATIVE ARTS COMMUNITY | $60,132 |
| FRANCONIA SCULPTURE PARK | $29,600 |
| PINE CITY ARTS COUNCIL | $21,675 |
| UNEXPECTED COMPANY CHORALE | $21,150 |
| CITY OF LINDSTROM | $20,000 |
| NORTH BRANCH PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $20,000 |
| KANABEC COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY | $20,000 |
| MILLE LACS COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY | $19,134 |
| EAST CENTRAL MINNESOTA PRIDE | $17,200 |
| CITY OF HINCKLEY | $16,500 |
| CITY OF NORTH BRANCH | $16,310 |
| MILACA RECFEST & ACTIVITIES | $15,734 |
| PINE CENTER FOR THE ARTS | $15,600 |
| CITY OF MORA | $13,659 |
| KANABEC COUNTY EXTENSION SERVICE | $11,341 |
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 (FY17–17, $8k) land where the poverty rate runs at 5%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 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 +27% since the first grant, against +11% for the ones you funded once.
29 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 8 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, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $127k 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
- WAWYOMING AREA CREATIVE ARTS COMMUNITY9× · 2017–2025 · $243k · revenue +7% · 54% of their budget
- MLMille Lacs County Agricultural Society9× · 2017–2025 · $144k · revenue +104%
- PCPINE COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY6× · 2017–2024 · $79k · revenue +27%
Funded once
- NWNORTH WOODS AND WATERS OF THE ST CROIX HERITAGE AREAone grant, 2024 · $20k · revenue 0% · 59% of their budget
- ECEAST CENTRAL MN EDUCATIONAL CABLE Cone grant, 2018 · $15k
- COCITY OF PINE CITYone grant, 2023 · $15k
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 engage, educate, enrich, and entertain through inspiring arts experiences. the city-owned facility is managed to ensure use by a diverse set of patrons, enhance artistic opportunity, provide a creative environment for community…
The mission of the Mankato Area Arts Council, DBA Carnegie Art Center, is to be a vibrant community destination that inspires, nurtures, and expands artistic, cultural, and educational experiences.
Our mission is to build a vibrant community fueled by the arts. We enrich lives by connecting, celebrating, inspiring, and leading through shared art experiences. Our vision is a community alive with creativity.
Provide a theatre of live music and events!
Support and enhance the development of the arts in northwestern minnesota. facilitate and encourage the creation and appreciation of the arts.
The Organization's mission is to excite, engage and serve communities within the Iowa Great Lakes Region through our collections, exhibitions, performances, and educational programs; a non-profit center connecting generations of people…
Dedicated to nurturing, encouraging, and supporting arts in aitkin county mn.
Community center that provides art exper
The Nemeth Art Center is a 501(c)3 non-profit arts organization and gallery space located in rural northern Minnesota. Open in the summer months, the NAC exhibits contemporary art from emerging and recognized artists and is particularly…
To promote the arts to educate, entertain, and enlighten in northern WI.
River Arts Alliance supports and celebrates regional arts and culture by connecting artists and community in the Winona, MN region.
The Lake Benton Opera House, one of the premiere historic buildings in southwest Minnesota. Home to an active community theatre, the Opera House has begun its second century in our community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is 210 Gallery and Art Center Colleen Shati and the most unlike its peers is Ecumen Sbc Inc. 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 18 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 20% of your grantees by number, and just 9% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
21 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. 21 of the 50 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 FRANCONIA SCULPTURE PARK LEGEROS ↗
- Who funds WYOMING AREA CREATIVE ARTS COMMUNITY ↗
- Who funds Mille Lacs County Agricultural Society ↗
- Who funds Walker Methodist Foundation ↗
- Who funds UNEXPECTED COMPANY CHORALE ↗
- Who funds PINE COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds VASALOPPET INC ↗
- Who funds ONE HEARTLAND ↗
- Who funds PINE CENTER FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds 210 GALLERY AND ART CENTER COLLEEN SHATI ↗
- Who funds Play Inc Arts ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LAKES & PINES COMMUNITY ACTION COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds PARADISE COMMUNITY THEATRE ASSN INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH WOODS AND WATERS OF THE ST CROIX HERITAGE AREA ↗
- Who funds TUSEN TACK ↗
- Who funds ALLINA HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ELIM HOMES INC ↗
- Who funds BEAR PAWS CULTURAL ART ↗
- Who funds CHISAGO COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
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: Initiative Foundation · St Croix Valley Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · C K Blandin Foundation · Hugh J Andersen Foundation · The Minneapolis Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 East Central Regional Arts Council 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
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Find your warmest path to East Central Regional Arts Council 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.