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· Private foundation

Jeannette and Curt Olson 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.

$115k
Granted FY2025still arriving
16
Grants FY2025still arriving
2
States reached
$30k
Largest
01What it funds
0193% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Education$337kPublic Benefit$153kFood & Nutrition$142kHealth$96kArts & Culture$65kReligion$53kHuman Services$19kPhilanthropy$19kOther$0
02FY2025 · 16 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k13 grants · $46k
  • $10k–50k3 grants · $70k
$5,000
Median grant
2
States reached
$2.2M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
CITY OF GRANITE FALLS$29,500
Individual grant recipient$25,000
NEIGHBORS UNITED RESOURCE CENTER$15,000
AVERA FOUNDATION$5,000
Individual grant recipient$5,000
GRANITE FALLS LIVING AT$5,000
GRANITE FALLS LUTHERAN CHURCH$5,000
Individual grant recipient$5,000
MINNESOTA WEST FOUNDATION$4,000
PROJECT TURNABOUT$3,000
GRANITE FALLS HISTORICAL SOCIETY$3,000
PHEASANTS FOREVER$2,500
GRANITE AREA ARTS COUNCIL$2,000
PIONEER PBS$2,000
YELLOW MEDICINE COUNTY$2,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 4% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%PIONEER PUBLIC TELEVISION: $5k → 10%UNITED WAY OF SW MINNESOTA: $5k → 11%AVERA FOUNDATION: $5k → 9%THE SALVATION ARMY: $5k → 14%AVERA FOUNDATION: $5k → 9%AVERA FOUNDATION: $5k → 9%CITY OF GRANITE FALLS: $30k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST: $25k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST: $25k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST: $24k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST: $20k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST: $20k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST: $20k → 11%CITY OF GRANITE FALLS: $20k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST: $20k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE COUNTY FOOD SHELF: $20k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST SCHOOL DISTRIC: $20k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST: $20k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST: $20k → 11%NEIGHBORS UNITED RESOURCE CENTER: $17k → 11%NEIGHBORS UNITED RESOURCE CENTER: $17k → 11%NEIGHBORS UNITED RESOURCE CENTER: $15k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST SCHOOL DISTRIC: $15k → 11%CITY OF GRANITE FALLS: $15k → 11%NEIGHBORS UNITED RESOURCE CENTER: $15k → 11%CITY OF GRANITE FALLS: $15k → 11%NEIGHBORS UNITED RESOURCE CENTER: $15k → 11%CITY OF GRANITE FALLS: $15k → 11%NEIGHBORS UNITED RESOURCE CENTER: $15k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST: $15k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE COUNTY FOOD SHELF: $15k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE COUNTY FOOD SHELF: $14k → 11%CITY OF GRANITE FALLS: $10k → 11%GRANITE FALLS AMBULANCE: $10k → 11%YELLOW MEDICINE EAST SCHOOL DISTRIC: $10k → 11%GRANITE FALLS LUTHERAN CHURCH: $10k → 11%GRANITE FALLS MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL: $10k → 11%GRANITE FALLS CONGREGATIONAL: $10k → 11%CITY OF GRANITE FALLS: $10k → 11%GRANITE FALLS LIVING AT: $10k → 11%GRANITE AREA ARTS COUNCIL: $9k → 11%GRANITE FALLS LUTHERAN CHURCH: $8k → 11%GRANITE FALLS CONGREGATIONAL: $8k → 11%GRANITE FALLS LIBRARY: $7k → 11%CITY OF GRANITE FALLS: $6k → 11%GRANITE FALLS LUTHERAN CHURCH: $5k → 11%GRANITE FALLS ALANO SOCIETY: $5k → 11%GRANITE FALLS LIVING AT: $5k → 11%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

99%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$978k · 22 repeat orgs$8k to everyone else

22 repeat relationships: 14 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

22
1

Total granted

$978k
$5k

Still filing today

23%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
EducationHealthFood & NutritionArts & CultureOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • NU
    NEIGHBORS UNITED RESOURCE CENTER
    6× · 2020–2025 · $93k · revenue +36%
  • MW
    MINNESOTA WEST FOUNDATION
    9× · 2017–2025 · $33k · revenue +38%
  • RF
    REVERENCE FOR LIFE AND CONCERN FOR PEOPLE INC
    9× · 2017–2025 · $26k · revenue +9%

Funded once

  • GF
    GRANITE FALLS ALANO SOCIETY INCORPORATED
    one grant, 2024 · $5k
How this is measured

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

04Its field
04the grantee network

5 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 5 of the 24 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
5/5
Grantees still filing
3/5
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Individual grant recipient: $224,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientGRANITE FALLS MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL AND MANOR: $148,500 · OtherGRANITE FALLS MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL AND MANORGRANITE FALLS LUTHERAN CHURCH: $53,000 · OtherGRANITE FALLS LUTHERAN CHURCHIndividual grant recipient: $53,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientGRANITE FALLS LIVING AT: $50,000 · OtherGRANITE FALLS LIVING ATYELLOW MEDICINE COUNTY FOOD SHELF: $49,000 · OtherYELLOW MEDICINE COUNTY FOOD SHELFYELLOW MEDICINE EAST SCHOOL DISTRIC: $45,000 · OtherYELLOW MEDICINE EAST SCHOOL DISTRIC+13 more: $188,000 · Other+13 moreNEIGHBORS UNITED RESOURCE CENTER: $93,000 · Food & NutritionNEIGHBORS …MINNESOTA WEST FOUNDATION: $33,000 · EducationREVERENCE FOR LIFE AND CONCERN FOR PEOPLE INC: $25,500 · HealthGRANITE AREA ARTS COUNCIL: $23,000 · Arts & Culture
Other$810,500Food & Nutrition$93,000Education$33,000Health$25,500Arts & Culture$23,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetNEIGHBORS UNITED RESOURCE CENTER: $93,000 over 6y, 17% of budgetMINNESOTA WEST FOUNDATION: $33,000 over 9y, 1.2% of budgetREVERENCE FOR LIFE AND CONCERN FOR PEOPLE INC: $25,500 over 9y, 0.0% of budgetGRANITE AREA ARTS COUNCIL: $23,000 over 8y, 3.5% of budgetWEST CENTRAL MN EDUC TELEVISION: $15,000 over 8y, 0.1% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

  • Who funds NEIGHBORS UNITED RESOURCE CENTER ↗
  • Who funds MINNESOTA WEST FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds REVERENCE FOR LIFE AND CONCERN FOR PEOPLE INC ↗
  • Who funds GRANITE AREA ARTS COUNCIL ↗
  • Who funds WEST CENTRAL MN EDUC TELEVISION ↗

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Southwest Initiative FoundationMN15.5× affinity5 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Southwest Initiative Foundation · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Jeannette and Curt Olson Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Jeannette and Curt Olson Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%5%11%20%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    3report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Jeannette and Curt Olson Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Jeannette and Curt Olson 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 24 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its 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.

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

    Source object · view filing

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