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· Private foundation

Messerli & Kramer Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$35k
Granted FY2025still arriving
7
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$5k
Largest
01What you fund
0169% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY20172025.

Education$103kHuman Services$19kHousing & Shelter$12kInternational$8kYouth Development$8kCommunity Improvement$8kOther$71k
02FY2025 · 7 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

$5,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$566k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
READING PARTNERS$5,000
ADVANCING EQUITY COALITION$5,000
KEYSTONE COMMUNITY SERVICES$5,000
BREAKTHROUGH TWIN CITIES$5,000
MINDS MATTER TWIN CITITES$5,000
EAST SIDE LEARNING CENTER$5,000
BABY'S SPACE A PLACE TO GROW$5,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY21–25, $19k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 8%BABY'S SPACE A PLACE TO GROW: $5k → 11%BABY'S SPACE A PLACE TO GROW: $5k → 11%FOSTER ADVOCATES: $4k → 14%FOSTER ADVOCATES: $4k → 14%FOSTER ADVOCATES: $1k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

90%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$207k · 15 repeat orgs$22k to everyone else

15 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

15
3

Total granted

$207k
$12k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+63%
+79%

Still filing today

93%
33%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 71% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
EducationHuman ServicesYouth DevelopmentHousing & ShelterCommunity ImprovementInternationalOther

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

  • ES
    EAST SIDE LEARNING CENTER
    6× · 2018–2025 · $28k · revenue +63%
  • BT
    Breakthrough Twin Cities
    5× · 2020–2025 · $22k · revenue +83%
  • KC
    Keystone Community Services
    5× · 2017–2025 · $21k · revenue +142%

Funded once

  • A
    ACES
    one grant, 2021 · $4k
  • CC
    CATHOLIC CHARITIES TWIN CITIES
    one grant, 2023 · $4k
  • CP
    COLLEGE POSSIBLE INCgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $4k · revenue +79%

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

04Your field

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.

1
Ed Allies

Edallies partners with schools, families, and communities to ensure that every young minnesotan has access to a rigorous and engaging education. we advance policies that put underserved students first, remove barriers facing successful…

Education
2
Minnesota Education Equity Partnership

To transform systems, structures and public narratives to advance race equity and excellence in education.

Housing & Shelter
3
Achieve Twin Cities

As one of the upper midwest's leading career and college readiness organizations, achieve twin cities rallies community support and delivers best-in-class programs to inspire and equip young people in minneapolis and saint paul, minnesota…

Youth Development
4
Mothers Tutoring Academy

Mothers Tutoring Academy (MTA) is a non-profit and an after-school tutoring institution founded on the tenets of the bylaws of the State of Minnesota. It's co-educational where both genders sit and study together and an inclusive school…

Education
5
Youthprise

Youthprise is a nonprofit intermediary that invests in the future of Minnesota by investing in youth. Youthprise's mission is to increase equity with and for Minnesota's indigenous, low-income, and racially diverse youth.

Education
6
Leadership Matters Mn

Leadership matters mn is focused on advancing a policy agenda that places working minnesotans first. we support economic growth, job creation and equitable tax and education policies that will allow every minnesotan to thrive.

Education
7
Achieve Now

Achieve now is a philadelphia-based social justice organization that sees literacy as a mechanism to effect social change. our mission is to provide k-2 school children in greater philadelphia with high-quality, culturally competent…

Education
8
Think Small

To advance quality care and education of children in their crucial early years.

Human Services
9
Minnesota Business Partnership

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…

10
Springboard Collaborative

Springboard collaborative combines targeted student instruction with parent training in an incentivized system that closes the literacy gap, by transferring the summer from a barrier into a springboard for financially disadvantaged…

Human Services
11
Level Up Academy

By tapping the intrinsic motivation and curiosity of every child, we deliver higher than usual growth.

Education
12
The Campbell Institute

Children's institute's mission is to leverage research, practice, policy, and advocacy to shift systems toward justice for families so that all of oregon's children, prenatal to grade 5, have access to opportunity.

Unclassified

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Literacy Minnesota and the most unlike its peers is Perspectives Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

16 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 16 of the 20 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
4
Early backer (in before they grew)
16/16
Grantees still filing
11/16
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

EAST SIDE LEARNING CENTER — $28,000 · EducationEAST SIDE LEARNING CENTERBreakthrough Twin Cities — $22,000 · EducationBreakthrough Twin CitiesREADING PARTNERS — $19,000 · EducationREADING PARTNERSWALLIN EDUCATION PARTNERS — $13,000 · EducationWALLIN EDUCATION PARTNERSLITERACY MINNESOTA — $12,000 · EducationLITERACY MINNESOTAAdvancing Equity Coalition — $5,000 · EducationCOLLEGE POSSIBLE INC — $4,000 · EducationKeystone Community Services — $21,000 · OtherKeystone Community ServicesCOMMONBOND COMMUNITIES — $17,000 · OtherCOMMONBOND COMMUNITIESIndividual grant recipient — $12,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientPERSPECTIVES INC — $8,000 · OtherPERSPECTIVES INCMINDS MATTER TWIN CITITES — $5,000 · OtherMINDS MATTER TWIN CITITESACES — $4,000 · OtherACESCATHOLIC CHARITIES TWIN CITIES — $4,000 · OtherCATHOLIC CHARITIES TWIN CITIESBABY'S SPACE A PLACE TO GROW — $10,000 · Human ServicesBABY'S SP…Foster Advocates — $9,000 · Human ServicesFoster Ad…PEOPLE SERVING PEOPLE INC — $12,000 · Housing & ShelterJUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT NORTH — $8,000 · International30000 Feet — $8,000 · Youth DevelopmentNEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE — $8,000 · Community Improvement
Education$103,000Other$71,000Human Services$19,000Housing & Shelter$12,000International$8,000Youth Development$8,000Community Improvement$8,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetEAST SIDE LEARNING CENTER — $28,000 over 6y, 1.2% of budgetBreakthrough Twin Cities — $22,000 over 5y, 0.3% of budgetKeystone Community Services — $21,000 over 5y, 0.1% of budgetREADING PARTNERS — $19,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetCOMMONBOND COMMUNITIES — $17,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetWALLIN EDUCATION PARTNERS — $13,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetLITERACY MINNESOTA — $12,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetPEOPLE SERVING PEOPLE INC — $12,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetBABY'S SPACE A PLACE TO GROW — $10,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetFoster Advocates — $9,000 over 3y, 0.9% of budgetJUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT NORTH — $8,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budget30000 Feet — $8,000 over 2y, 0.7% of budgetNEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE — $8,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetPERSPECTIVES INC — $8,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetCOLLEGE POSSIBLE INC — $4,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

Otto Bremer TrustMN21.4× affinity8 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Otto Bremer Trust · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · The Walser Foundation · Mortenson Family Foundation · Greater Twin Cities United Way · The Richard M Schulze Family Foundation · The Minneapolis Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · The Sauer Family Foundation · Hardenbergh Foundation · Fr Bigelow Foundation · Warren 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 Messerli & Kramer 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%your share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    6report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    typical government reliance, FY2025

    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.

    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Messerli & Kramer Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Messerli & Kramer 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 directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 20 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

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

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph