· Private foundation
John J and Nora a Foster 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NEW BEGINNINGS | $6,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,500 |
| NEW LIFE FAMILY SERVICES | $3,000 |
| GRANITE HOUSE | $2,500 |
| BIRTH RIGHT OF HUTCHINSON | $2,500 |
| TRINITY FIRST LUTHERAN CHURCH | $2,000 |
| CAMP VICTORY | $2,000 |
| CAMPUS CRUSADE FOR CHRIST | $2,000 |
| THE SPECIALTY CROP COLLABORATIVE | $2,000 |
| MINNESOTA FAMILY INSTITUTE | $2,000 |
| ENKRATEIA HOUSE OF HOPE | $2,000 |
| LAKEVIEW HEALTH FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH CHURCHROSELLA'S | $1,500 |
| TOGETHER FOR GOOD | $1,500 |
| SUPPORT LIFECRYSTAL WOMEN'S CLINIC | $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, $8k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
30 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2025, 16 since wound down; 6 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, 79% 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
- NLNEW LIFE FAMILY SERVICES3× · 2023–2025 · $12k · revenue +50%
- OCONE COLLECTIVE4× · 2017–2022 · $8k · revenue +29%
- GHGRANITE HOUSE INC3× · 2023–2025 · $7k · revenue +36%
Funded once
- SSSOUTH SHORE TRINITY LUTHERANone grant, 2021 · $3k
- BGBETHANY GLOBAL UNIVERSITYone grant, 2022 · $2k
- CCCAMPUS CRUSADE - MADISON WIone grant, 2022 · $2k
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.
Minnesota family council (mfc) is a non-profit christian organization that is dedicated to strengthening minnesota families by advancing biblical principles in the public arena, for the glory of the lord jesus christ and the good of…
Encouraging people of all ages and stages of family development to lead Christ-centered homes.
To increase the quality of life for individuals and families that live in a single parent homes. 50
Counseling and benevolent assistance to new parents and their children.
Ministry of Graceway Ministries Providing low cost child care and extended family services with spiritual guidance for families
Motivated by christ's love, we engage people as they experience and embrace their god-given potential.
Church or religious organization.
Uniting christian faith leaders to serve with humility and love for the flourishing of all in our community.
Exploring god in creation; growing faith in community; engaging the world as followers of jesus
Arrive ministries is dedicated to living out god's command to welcome refugees and immigrants in minnesota. our purpose is to see life transformation for refugees, immigrants, and the church.
For god's love to be expressed for and by individuals with developmental disabilities through faith based programs and services.
Collins family ministries, inc. exists to embody the love of christ by providing compassion to families, children, and at-risk youth who are experiencing hardship. we provide shelter for children, strength to families, and stability to our…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Together for Good and the most unlike its peers is Enkrateia House of Hope. 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 36 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 9% of your grantees by number, and just 8% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
11 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. 11 of the 51 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 LAKEVIEW HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NEW LIFE FAMILY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds ONE COLLECTIVE ↗
- Who funds GRANITE HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA FAMILY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds GLEAN MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds TOGETHER FOR GOOD ↗
- Who funds ENKRATEIA HOUSE OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds BEYOND LIMITS INC ↗
- Who funds VICTORY CHRISTIAN ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds FEED MY STARVING CHILDREN INC ↗
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: Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing · The US Charitable Gift Trust · Thrivent Financial for Lutherans · The Signatry Charitable Trust · Xcel Energy Foundation · The Jennings Family Foundation · The Minneapolis Foundation · Christian Community Foundation Inc · Servant Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Renaissance Charitable Foundation Inc · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund
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 J and Nora a Foster 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.
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Find your warmest path to John J and Nora a Foster 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.