· Public charity
Lake Region Arts Council
To encourage and support the vitality of the arts in west central minnesota
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2022–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 30 grants below total $345,820 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $503,067 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $157,247 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 $10k13 grants · $104k
- $10k–50k17 grants · $242k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NEW YORK MILLS ARTS RETREAT | $22,600 |
| DETROIT LAKES COMMUNITY CULTURAL CT | $20,050 |
| CENTRAL SQUARE | $17,580 |
| HENNING LANDMARK CENTER | $17,362 |
| HISTORICAL & CULTURAL SOC OF CLAY C | $17,132 |
| ART OF THE LAKES | $14,100 |
| SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS | $14,000 |
| MINNEWASKA THEATRE ARTS ASSOC | $13,310 |
| FERGUS FALLS PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $12,500 |
| ARTISTREE COMMUNITY | $12,500 |
| PELICAN RAPIDS PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL | $12,500 |
| PRAIRIE WIND PLAYERS OF GRANT CO | $12,206 |
| CONCORDIA COLLEGE | $11,940 |
| EVANSVILLE ARTS COALITION | $11,671 |
| FRAZEE VERGAS PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $11,200 |
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 (FY22–24, $63k) 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 +9% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
41 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2025, 19 since wound down; 8 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, 70% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $105k 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
- KBKICKS BAND OF FARGO MOORHEAD4× · 2022–2025 · $75k · revenue +35% · 34% of their budget
- AOART OF THE LAKES ASSOCIATION INC4× · 2022–2025 · $67k · revenue +65%
- HLHENNING LANDMARK CENTER INC4× · 2022–2025 · $62k · revenue +40%
Funded once
- EESHARAone grant, 2024 · $13k · revenue 0%
- FAFERGUS AREA COLLEGE FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $12k · revenue +64%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTAone grant, 2022 · $11k
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.
Arts presenter serving the greater Reedsburg area.
To promote the arts to educate, entertain, and enlighten in northern WI.
Public service of the arts for the Campbell County, SD, community.
The mission of the Mankato Area Arts Council, DBA Carnegie Art Center, is to be a vibrant community destination that inspires, nurtures, and expands artistic, cultural, and educational experiences.
Inspire artists, audiences, and our greater southern wisconsin community to celabrate the art of theatre.
Art appreciation for fergus county and the surrounding area.
The Dakota Center for the Arts is an Eagan community-based organization whose purpose is to develop, promote & encourage participation in & appreciation of the arts.
Lake City Are Arts strengthens the community through arts and culture. We hold art exhibits, conduct classes, have concerts of local musicians, host the community choir, host a weekly music circle, participate in Lake City events .
To promote education in the arts
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Fergus Falls Center for the Arts Inc and the most unlike its peers is Eshara. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 17 years old; the field is 25. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 16% startups (under 5 years old) — 15% of your grantees by number, and just 11% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 8% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 62 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 KICKS BAND OF FARGO MOORHEAD ↗
- Who funds ART OF THE LAKES ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds FARGO-MOORHEAD CHORAL ARTISTS ↗
- Who funds HENNING LANDMARK CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL SQUARE INC ↗
- Who funds FERGUS FALLS CENTER FOR THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds DLCCC INC ↗
- Who funds KADDATZ GALLERIES LTD ↗
- Who funds HISTORICAL & CULTURAL SOCIETY OF CLAY COUNTY ↗
- Who funds CORNERSTONE ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL LAKES SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds PERHAM CENTER FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK MILLS ARTS RETREAT ↗
- Who funds GOOSEBERRY PARK PLAYERS ↗
- Who funds PRAIRIE WIND PLAYERS OF GRANT COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds THEATRE L'HOMME DIEU ↗
- Who funds PHELPS MILL COUNTRY ↗
- Who funds ROURKE ART GALLERY MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds THREE RIVERS ARTS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds ALEXANDRIA AREA ARTS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds ESHARA ↗
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: West Central Initiative · Otter Tail Power Company Foundation · C K Blandin Foundation · Roger L & Agnes C Dell Charitable Trust · Fargo-Moorhead Area Foundation Corporation · Alex Stern Family Foundation · Otter Tail Corporation Foundation · The Barry Foundation · Sanford Group Return · Midcontinent Foundation · The Lundeen Foundation · Frank W Veden Charitable 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 Lake Region Arts Council 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 Lake Region Arts Council?
Find your warmest path to Lake Region Arts Council 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.