· Private foundation
Michael D Arneson and Susan H Arneson
Its FY2021 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 FY2020–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k8 grants · $21k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
- $250k+1 grant · $4.7M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FIDELITY CHARITABLE - THE ARNESON FAMILY FUND | $4,693,766 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION - SCHOOL OF BUSINESS | $10,000 |
| FRIENDS OF MCGILVRAY ROAD | $7,500 |
| GALLATIN RIVER TASK FORCE | $5,000 |
| BIG SKY COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION | $3,500 |
| ARTS COUNCIL OF BIG SKY | $2,601 |
| BIG SKY CHAPEL ENDOWMENT FUND | $1,000 |
| AGRACE HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE CARE | $1,000 |
| FRIENDS OF THE REFUGE-MISS RIVER POOLS 7 & 8 | $600 |
| BIG SKY SKI EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $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 (FY20–20, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 100% of Michael D Arneson and Susan H Arneson’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +45% since the first grant, against +40% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2021, 0 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (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 FY2021, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4.7M 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
- GRGallatin River Task Force2× · 2020–2021 · $10k · revenue +118%
- ACARTS COUNCIL OF BIG SKY2× · 2020–2021 · $5k · revenue +652%
- AHAgrace HospiceCare Inc2× · 2020–2021 · $2k · revenue +45%
Funded once
DIRECT RELIEFone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +20%
THE CONSERVATION FUND A NONPROFIT CORPORATIONgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +42%- MPMinneapolis Parks Foundationgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $9k · revenue +144%
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.
The minnesota land trust protects and restores minnesota's most vital natural lands in order to provide wildlife habitat, clean water, outdoor experiences and scenic beauty for generations to come.
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…
MCF is a vibrant philanthropic community connecting, strengthening and mobilizing the power of philanthropy to advance prosperity and equity.
The minnesota environmental partnership is a coalition that strengthens member effectiveness and builds collective power to secure a healthy environment for all minnesotans.
The montana wildlife federation is a statewide conservation organization dedicated to protecting wildlife, wildlife habitat, and public access for outdoor recreation.
Greater yellowstone coalition works with all people to protect the lands, waters, and wildlife of the greater yellowstone ecosystem, now and for future generations.
To be the leading voice of medicine to make minnesota the healthiest state and the best place to practice.
The minnesota center for environmental advocacy is a nonprofit organization that uses law, science and research to protect minnesota's environment, its natural resources and the health of its people.
Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
The minnesota chamber of commerce proactively leads the business community statewide to: advance pro-business, responsible minnesota public policy that creates jobs and grows the econony; provde member services to address evolving business…
Midwest dairy works with others to give consumers an excellent dairy experience increasing sales, fostering innovation, and inspiring consumer confidence of dairy products and practices.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Meals On Wheels America and the most unlike its peers is National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Inc. 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 36 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
36 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. 36 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 DIRECT RELIEF ↗
- Who funds Gallatin River Task Force ↗
- Who funds THE CONSERVATION FUND A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Minneapolis Parks Foundation ↗
- Who funds Eagle Mount ↗
- Who funds ARTS COUNCIL OF BIG SKY ↗
- Who funds Feeding America ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST HEARTLAND ↗
- Who funds BIG SKY COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE BOUNDARY WATERS WILDERNESS ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA ZOO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GREATER TWIN CITIES UNITED WAY ↗
- Who funds THE MONTANA LAND RELIANCE ↗
- Who funds YELLOWSTONE FOREVER ↗
- Who funds THREE RIVERS PARK DISTRICT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION INC ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS AMERICA ↗
- Who funds SCIENCE MUSEUM OF MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE HENNEPIN COUNTY LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds BIG SKY CHAPEL INC ↗
- Who funds Agrace HospiceCare Inc ↗
- Who funds WELLNESS IN ACTION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds MN350 ↗
- Who funds GLEASON LAKE ELEMENTARY PTO INC ↗
- Who funds Ronald McDonald House Charities - Upper Midwest ↗
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: The Minneapolis Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Spanish Peaks Community Foundation · Moonlight Community Foundation · The Carter Family Foundation · Yellowstone Club Community Foundation · One Valley Community Foundation · Prometheus Charitable Trust · Longview Foundation · The K Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Xcel Energy 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 Michael D Arneson and Susan H Arneson 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.