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Plinth

· Public charity

First Lutheran Church Foundation

To expand the witness and mission of the first lutheran church in the community, region and world.

$315k
Granted FY2025still arriving
9
Grants FY2025still arriving
2
States reached
$172k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.

Religion$1.1MHousing & Shelter$210kHuman Services$104kFood & Nutrition$102kRecreation & Sports$35kInternational$30kHealth$24kPhilanthropy$23kOther$0
02FY2025 · 9 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

The 9 grants below total $265,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $314,751 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $49,751 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 $10k1 grant · $9k
  • $10k–50k7 grants · $84k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $172k
$12,087
Median grant
2
States reached
$6.6M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
FIRST LUTHERAN CHURCH$172,298
CHURCHES UNITED FOR THE HOMELESS$15,000
EMERGENCY FOOD PANTRY$14,500
UNITED WAY$12,500
YWCA CASS CLAY$12,087
NEW LIFE CENTER$10,115
DOWN HOME$10,000
CROSSROADS LUTHERAN CAMPUS MINISTRY AT NDSU$10,000
FEED MY STARVING CHILDREN$8,500
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY17–17, $6k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 7%DAKOTA BOYS AND GIRLS RANCH: $6k → 12%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

91%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$1.5M · 19 repeat orgs$141k to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +51% since the first grant, against +11% for the ones you funded once.

19 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

19
17

Total granted

$1.5M
$141k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+51%
+11%

Still filing today

74%
59%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
ReligionInternationalHousing & ShelterHealthEducationHuman ServicesOther

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

  • CU
    CHURCHES UNITED
    6× · 2017–2025 · $76k · revenue +95%
  • FM
    FEED MY STARVING CHILDREN INC
    7× · 2017–2025 · $57k · revenue +83%
  • YC
    YWCA CASS CLAY
    5× · 2021–2025 · $54k · revenue +152%

Funded once

  • GP
    Great Plains Food Bank
    one grant, 2020 · $15k · revenue +14%
  • NL
    NDSU LUTHERAN CAMPUS MINISTRY
    one grant, 2018 · $14k
  • FU
    Fargo Union Missiongraduated
    one grant, 2019 · $11k · revenue +131%

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

04Your field

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.

1
Catholic Charities North Dakota

Guided by our values, Catholic Charities North Dakota serves people in need and advocates for the common good of all.

—
2
Family Promise in Anoka County

Family Promise in Anoka County (FPAC) empowers families experiencing housing insecurity to build a foundation of lasting independence.

Human Services
3
Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St Cloud

At Catholic Charities, we focus our efforts around three core pillars: Food Access, Mental Health and Housing. Guided by our mission - to serve and enhance human dignity for all people - we provide essential services and foster a sense of…

Human Services
4
Open Table Ministry Inc

Open Table Ministry seeks out and guides people experiencing homelessness and poverty toward long-term health and wholeness by building ongoing trusting relationships, meeting practical and personal needs, making connections to community…

Food & Nutrition
5
Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless

Since 1986, open your heart to the hungry and homeless has worked to ensureevery minnesotan is free from hunger and homelessness. by partnering with organizations serving those in need, we grow donor engagement and raise awareness to…

—
6
House of Charity

Feed those in need, house those experiencing homelessness, and empower individuals to achieve independence.

—
7
Feeding South Dakota

To eliminate hunger in south dakota.

Food & Nutrition
8
Home First - Interfaith Housing and Family Services

Home-first offers permanent solutions to homelessness by providing transitional housing and permanent housing, homelessness prevention assitance and support services to strengthen families and build commun

—
9
Lighthouse for the Homeless

The only free day shelter in the area comprised of a collection of community agencies and service providers, all focused on a single mission: ending homelessness in tarrant county.

Human Services
10
Churches United in Ministry

Churches united in ministry (chum) is people of faith working together to provide basic necessities, foster stable lives and organize for a just and compassionate community.

—
11
Christian Mission for the United Nations Community

Christian Mission for the United Nations Community is a ministry aimed at leading the head of every nation and other top leaders to faith in Jesus Christ and helping them to walk in dependence upon God as they discharge the…

—
12
Family Promise of Greater Des Moines

To provide shelter and services to families experiencing homelessness

—

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Feed My Starving Children Inc and the most unlike its peers is Soul Solutions Recovery Center 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 38 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number19%0%<5yr14%7%5–10yr19%20%10–20yr19%13%20–35yr15%40%35–55yr14%20%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value19%0%<5yr14%3%5–10yr19%10%10–20yr19%3%20–35yr15%77%35–55yr14%7%55yr+

The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/35
the rest of the field
14%
2,056/14,921

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.

04the grantee network

25 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. 25 of the 36 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
7
Early backer (in before they grew)
24/25
Grantees still filing
19/25
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

FIRST LUTHERAN CHURCH — $933,285 · OtherFIRST LUTHERAN CHURCH+19 more — $331,557 · Other+19 moreCHURCHES UNITED — $76,026 · ReligionCHURCHES U…New Life Center Foundation — $32,115 · ReligionNew Life C…MOUNT CARMEL MINISTRIES INC — $19,934 · ReligionMOUNT CARM…PEACE OFFICER JAIL CHAPLAINS ASSOCIATION — $16,500 · ReligionPEACE OFFI…The Center for Christian Education Inc — $10,000 · ReligionThe Center…FEED MY STARVING CHILDREN INC — $56,600 · InternationalONE COLLECTIVE — $12,500 · InternationalFRIENDS OF ACCION INC — $6,000 · InternationalYWCA CASS CLAY — $54,369 · Housing & ShelterJEREMIAH PROGRAM — $11,000 · Housing & ShelterFARM IN THE DELL OF THE RED RIVER VALLEY INC — $6,000 · Housing & ShelterHERO HEALTHCARE EQUIPMENT RECYCLING ORGANIZATION — $16,202 · HealthSoul Solutions Recovery Center Inc — $7,600 · HealthANNE CARLSEN CENTER — $10,000 · EducationTEACH HAITI — $6,000 · EducationGreat Plains Food Bank — $15,000 · Food & Nutrition
Other$1,264,842Religion$154,575International$75,100Housing & Shelter$71,369Health$23,802Education$16,000Food & Nutrition$15,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetCHURCHES UNITED — $76,026 over 6y, 0.4% of budgetFEED MY STARVING CHILDREN INC — $56,600 over 7y, 0.0% of budgetYWCA CASS CLAY — $54,369 over 5y, 0.2% of budgetDOWN HOME — $40,000 over 4y, 2.1% of budgetELIM HOMES INC — $38,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetNew Life Center Foundation — $32,115 over 3y, 8.8% of budgetLake Agassiz Habitat for Humanity — $25,000 over 5y, 0.5% of budgetEMERGENCY FOOD PANTRY INC — $24,500 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetUnited Way of Cass-Clay — $22,500 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetMOUNT CARMEL MINISTRIES INC — $19,934 over 3y, 0.6% of budgetPEACE OFFICER JAIL CHAPLAINS ASSOCIATION — $16,500 over 2y, 4.0% of budgetHERO HEALTHCARE EQUIPMENT RECYCLING ORGANIZATION — $16,202 over 2y, 0.9% of budgetGreat Plains Food Bank — $15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetONE COLLECTIVE — $12,500 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetJEREMIAH PROGRAM — $11,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetThe Center for Christian Education Inc — $10,000 over 1y, 7.4% of budgetANNE CARLSEN CENTER — $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFM Rotary Foundation — $10,000 over 1y, 3.3% of budgetSoul Solutions Recovery Center Inc — $7,600 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetDAKOTA BOYS AND GIRLS RANCH FOUNDATION — $6,175 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFRIENDS OF ACCION INC — $6,000 over 1y, 3.4% of budgetTEACH HAITI — $6,000 over 1y, 1.6% of budgetFARM IN THE DELL OF THE RED RIVER VALLEY INC — $6,000 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetFARGO-MOORHEAD DOROTHY DAY HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY INC — $5,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budget
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.

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.

Fargo-Moorhead Area F…Blue Cross Blue Shiel…Dakota Medical Founda…The Barry FoundationMidcontinent Foundati…Thrivent Charitable I…Alex Stern Family Fou…Fred M Hector Jr Char…United Way of Cass-Cl…Impact FoundationOffutt Family Foundat…Otto Bremer Trust
Fargo-Moorhead Area Foundation CorporationND38.3× affinity16 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Fargo-Moorhead Area Foundation Corporation · Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota Caring Foundation · Dakota Medical Foundation · The Barry Foundation · Midcontinent Foundation · Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing · Alex Stern Family Foundation · Fred M Hector Jr Charitable Trust · United Way of Cass-Clay · Impact Foundation · Offutt Family Foundation · Otto Bremer 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 First Lutheran Church 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.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%3%6%10%your share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25

    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 36 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    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 camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home
    State money flows
    the interactive map of money crossing state lines