· Private foundation
John & Marilyn Olson Family 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 56% of JOHN & MARILYN OLSON FAMILY FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| RICHLAND COUNTY FOOD BANK | $6,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF THE MONDAK | $6,000 |
| R C COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE | $5,000 |
| FOUNDATION FOR COMMUNITY CARE | $5,000 |
| R C EMERGENCY SHELTER COALITION | $5,000 |
| ROI FOUNDATION INC | $5,000 |
| NORTHEASTERN ARTS NETWORK | $4,000 |
| PELLA LUTHERAN CHURCH | $4,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $4,000 |
| EASTERN MONTANA COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH CENTER | $4,000 |
| EAGLE FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| FLATHEAD LUTHERAN BIBLE CAMP | $3,000 |
| MON-DAK HERITAGE CENTER | $3,000 |
| SIDNEY AREA DOLLARS FOR SCHOLARS | $2,000 |
| MONTANA COUNCIL FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION | $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 (FY17–25, $57k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 +49% since the first grant, against -67% for the ones you funded once.
48 repeat relationships — 39 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 2 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, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7k 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
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF RICHLAND COUNTY8× · 2017–2024 · $48k · revenue +42%
- RCRICHLAND COUNTY FOOD BANK INC9× · 2017–2025 · $47k · revenue +60%
- RCRICHLAND COUNTY COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INC9× · 2017–2025 · $45k · revenue +20%
Funded once
- TGTRUE GENTLEMAN FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $150k · 89% of their budget
- GSGIRL SCOUT TROOP #2433one grant, 2017 · $500
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 greatfully steward the land and singing waters with respect and care. To build a beloved community that values justice, equality, and love.
Enhancement and development of trails on public lands in Beaverhead County
The montana preservation alliance (mpa) saves and protects montana's historic places, traditional landscapes, and cultural heritage. we are the only statewide, not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing montanans with the resources…
The mblc exists to encourage and enact business-friendly policies that create good-paying jobs and make montana a better place to live. the primary purpose of the mblc is to educate the public on important business issues, enable citizens…
The montana state parks foundation raises private support to enhance the visitors experience and build advocates for montanas state parks and recreation heritage.
To build and maintain trails in the Missouri River Headwaters Area.
To Provide Financial and Other Support to Fire and Emergency Medical Service Organizations and Providers Serving the Greater Red Lodge, Montana Community.
Our mission is to provide visitors with an engaging, recreational, and educational experience, while ensuring exceptional care for our animal and plant collections and supporting responsible propagation programs for species in need.
To provide through local leadership economic, technical, and engineering information, and access to resources to improve theeconomies in the area.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Montanas Outdoor Legacy Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Bresee 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 29 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 53 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 TRUE GENTLEMAN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF RICHLAND COUNTY ↗
- Who funds RICHLAND COUNTY FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds RICHLAND COUNTY COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INC ↗
- Who funds ROI FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR COMMUNITY CARE ↗
- Who funds MONDAK HERITAGE CENTER ↗
- Who funds EASTERN MONTANA COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds SIDNEY GYMNASTICS CLUB ↗
- Who funds FORT PECK FINE ARTS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds VALLEY COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SUNRISE PREGNANCY RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds Intermountain Deaconess Childrens Services ↗
- Who funds FLATHEAD LAKERS INC ↗
- Who funds BIGFORK CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS FOUNDATION LTD ↗
- Who funds ARTS COUNCIL OF BIG SKY ↗
- Who funds The LifeGuard Group Inc ↗
- Who funds SIDNEY FIRE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GLACIER NATIONAL PARK CONSERVANCY ↗
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: Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation · Montana Community Foundation Inc · M J Murdock Charitable Trust · Oneok Foundation Inc · Whitefish Community Foundation Inc · Gianforte Family Charitable Trust · First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · Dayton Foundation · Foundation for Community Care · Town Pump Charitable Foundation · Bnsf Railway Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc
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 John & Marilyn Olson Family 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to John & Marilyn Olson Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to John & Marilyn Olson Family 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.