· Private foundation
Michael J & Karen B Frey Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k12 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $160k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $490k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PROVIDENCE ACADEMY | $165,000 |
| FRIENDS OF EDUCATION | $100,000 |
| UMLC | $75,000 |
| INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE | $50,000 |
| CENTER FOR AMERICAN EXPERIMENT | $50,000 |
| MINNESOTA VOTERS ALLIANCE | $50,000 |
| SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST | $26,000 |
| ALPHA NEWS | $25,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| CROOK COUNTY - FIRE FUND | $25,000 |
| CROOK COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT | $18,000 |
| FOLDS OF HONOR | $16,000 |
| ST THOMAS ACADEMY | $15,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| CROOK COUNTY RODEO ROYALTY | $3,000 |
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 (FY19–22, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +43% since the first grant, against +26% for the ones you funded once.
31 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2024, 16 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $63k 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
- PAPROVIDENCE ACADEMY6× · 2019–2024 · $860k · revenue +36%
- FOFRIENDS OF EDUCATION3× · 2019–2024 · $292k · revenue +32%
- IFINSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE6× · 2019–2024 · $250k · revenue +57%
Funded once
- RMROCKY MOUNTAIN ELK FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2020 · $50k
- ECED CHOICEone grant, 2020 · $25k
- CCCROOK COUNTY MEDICAL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $25k
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 be the leading voice of medicine to make minnesota the healthiest state and the best place to practice.
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…
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…
MCF is a vibrant philanthropic community connecting, strengthening and mobilizing the power of philanthropy to advance prosperity and equity.
The foundation cultivates generosity by taking action on the greatest civic, social, and economic needs partnering with nonprofits, facilitating grantmaking, driving research and advocacy, and providing services to donors seeking to make a…
We believe that great schools are the cornerstone of a just and thriving community. ensuring that every child is able to attend a school that works is our moral and social imperative - our children deserve no less.
The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…
To provide the highest level of stewardship for university donors through professional management and oversight of the university of minnesota foundation's assets by creating a focused investment environment with clarity of purpose,…
Advance the health of individuals and communities through leadership, advocacy and collaboration on behalf of minnesota hospitals and health systems. vision: minnesotans are healthy and have access to the right care at the right time in…
Led by minnesota state university students, we are the inclusive voice for all future, current, and former students. we actively work to represent and support minnesota state university students and advocate at a campus, state, and federal…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
Creating powerful advocacy to enhance economic vitality in the minneapolis-st. paul region.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Children's Health Care Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Flaherty Family Foundation. 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 35 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% 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 12% 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.
48 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. 48 of the 93 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 PROVIDENCE ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds ALPHA NEWS ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA VOTERS ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds Center of the American Experiment ↗
- Who funds UPPER MIDWEST LAW CENTER ↗
- Who funds FOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EdChoice Inc ↗
- Who funds SAINT PAUL & MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TREEHOUSE ↗
- Who funds FLAHERTY FAMILY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TREEHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds PERSPECTIVES INC ↗
- Who funds Children's HopeChest ↗
- Who funds The Banyan Foundation ↗
- Who funds Karen Wyckoff Rein in Sarcoma ↗
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 · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Pine Rock Foundation Inc · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota · Bieber Family Foundation · The Walser Foundation · The US Charitable Gift Trust · Xcel Energy Foundation · Mithun Family Foundation · United Way Worldwide · Pohlad Family 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 J & Karen B Frey 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.
- Naples Botanical Garden Inc — 3% of income from government
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.