· Private foundation
Ellie Holden Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Wayzata Community Church | $4,000 |
| Youth Frontiers | $4,000 |
| CommonBond Communities | $3,000 |
| Can Do Canines | $3,000 |
| Dad's of Down Syndrome | $3,000 |
| Everytown for Gun Safety | $2,000 |
| Play Equity Fund | $2,000 |
| The Bond Between | $2,000 |
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 (FY19–25, $36k) 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 89% of Ellie Holden Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 81% of the giving stays in MN; read by stated purpose it is 11% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
9 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 4 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, 61% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $9k 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
- YFYOUTH FRONTIERS INC6× · 2019–2025 · $36k · revenue -25%
- WCWayzata Community Church6× · 2019–2025 · $36k
- AAAKTIV AGAINST CANCER INC5× · 2019–2024 · $18k · revenue -11%
Funded once
- HAHOPE ACADEMY INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue +240%
- PMPROTECT MINNESOTAone grant, 2024 · $4k · revenue 0%
- HCHighpoint Center for Printmakingone grant, 2024 · $1k · revenue 0%
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.
Primary Exempt Purpose- Protect Minnesota Advocacy fund supports the mission of Protect Minnesota to prevent gun violence through legislative actions community education and fudn development.
Connectability of mn, inc. works to advance the independence, productivity, and full citizenship of people experiencing physical or invisible barriers.
Mission: together we advance the quality of life for people with disabilities. vision: people of all abilities thrive in the world. values: impact- generate solutions that make a difference. choice - create opportunities for people to lead…
The minnesota alliance on crime connects systems, service providers, and victims to advance the response for victims of all crime.
Driven by an unwavering moral imperative that every child, regardless of its race, income or zip code, deserves the same high-quality education, mn comeback has become a growing movement of philanthropists, community leaders and education…
Creating a more inclusive venture capital and entrepreneurial ecosystem.
MinnPost produces independent journalism to serve as a trusted guide for Minnesotans exploring the critical issues, challenges and opportunities facing our state.
The citizens utility board (cub) of minnesota champions affordable, reliable, safe, and clean home energy for all minnesotans.
Avivo increases well-being through recovery and career advancement while working to end homelessness.
The mission of community shares of minnesota is to create a fair, just and equitable minnesota. community shares of minnesota accomplishes its mission by: supporting collective action to eliminate root causes of inequality and injustice;…
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…
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.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Interfaith Outreach and Community Partners and the most unlike its peers is Aktiv Against Cancer Inc. 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 16 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 YOUTH FRONTIERS INC ↗
- Who funds AKTIV AGAINST CANCER INC ↗
- Who funds The Constellation Fund ↗
- Who funds OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL INC D/B/A OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL-US ↗
- Who funds INTERFAITH OUTREACH AND COMMUNITY PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds CAN DO CANINES ↗
- Who funds COMMONBOND COMMUNITIES ↗
- Who funds HOPE ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds PROTECT MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds THE PLAY EQUITY FUND ↗
- Who funds EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY SUPPORT FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE BOND BETWEEN ↗
- Who funds Highpoint Center for Printmaking ↗
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: The Minneapolis Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · 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 Ellie Holden 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.