· Private foundation
Helen Sperry Lea Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
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.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k4 grants · $17k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $117k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE WOODEN FLOOR | $30,000 |
| PROJECT FOR PRIDE IN LIVING | $20,000 |
| SECOND HARVEST HEARTLAND | $20,000 |
| MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST | $15,000 |
| BRAVER ANGELS-INST FOR AM VALUES | $11,755 |
| MASS AUDUBON | $10,000 |
| INTERACT CTR FOR VIS PERM ARTS | $10,000 |
| HALLIE Q BROWN COMM CENTER | $9,754 |
| URBAN BOAT BUILDERS | $4,000 |
| FRIEND OF THE MS RIVER | $2,000 |
| WALK IN COUNSELING CENTER | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $175k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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 +56% since the first grant, against +8% for the ones you funded once.
22 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 11 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 FY2025, 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
- TWTHE WOODEN FLOOR FOR YOUTH MOVEMENT9× · 2017–2025 · $211k · revenue +10%
- PFPROJECT FOR PRIDE IN LIVING INC9× · 2017–2025 · $144k · revenue +56%
- SHSECOND HARVEST HEARTLAND9× · 2017–2025 · $122k · revenue +119%
Funded once
- SPST PAUL ACADEMYone grant, 2017 · $10k
- AFAMERICAN FARM SCHOOL IN GREECEone grant, 2018 · $8k
VENICE FAMILY CLINICgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $6k · revenue +110%
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.
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…
Mcad provides a transformative education within a community of support for creative students of all backgrounds to work, collaborate, and lead with confidence in a dynamic, interconnected world.
Avivo increases well-being through recovery and career advancement while working to end homelessness.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Develop resources and opportunities which empower people and communities.
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…
Led by minnesota state university students, we are the inclusive voice for all future, current, and former students. we actively work to represent and support minnesota state university students and advocate at a campus, state, and federal…
Map is a local, statewide, and national resource for communities looking to develop and implement proven, innovative, community-centered strategies that address gender-based violence. using map's "we are all connected" (waac) prevention…
The minnesota private business council fights to advance policies that grow minnesota jobs and to elect public officials committed to joining with us.
To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.
Move minnesota leads the movement for an equitable and sustainable transportation system that puts people first. we are passionate about connecting communities, ending the climate crisis, expanding access to jobs and resources, and…
Mity's mission is to inspire and challenge intellectually curious students to pursue their passions within a diverse, inclusive community and empower them by building skills and relationships for lifelong success.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Esalen Institute and the most unlike its peers is Massachusetts Audubon Society Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 28 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 WOODEN FLOOR FOR YOUTH MOVEMENT ↗
- Who funds PROJECT FOR PRIDE IN LIVING INC ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST HEARTLAND ↗
- Who funds SIMPSON HOUSING SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS AUDUBON SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR TEACHING PEACE INC ↗
- Who funds INTERACT CENTER FOR THE VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds URBAN BOATBUILDERS INC ↗
- Who funds WALK-IN COUNSELING CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds ESALEN INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds ST PAUL ACADEMY AND SUMMIT SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER ↗
- Who funds VENICE FAMILY CLINIC ↗
- Who funds JUXTAPOSITION ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds LANGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HEAL THE BAY ↗
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 K Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · The Minneapolis Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Fr Bigelow Foundation · The McKnight Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · 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 Helen Sperry Lea 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.
- Massachusetts Audubon Society Inc — 1% of income from government
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
How do I get to Helen Sperry Lea Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Helen Sperry Lea Foundation 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.