· Public charity
Minnesota Freedom Fund
The MINNESOTA FREEDOM FUND pays criminal bail and immigration bonds for those who cannot otherwise afford to as we seek to end discriminatory, coercive, and oppressive jailing.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MINNESOTA FREEDOM FUND ACTION | $100,000 |
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 (FY20–22, $4.7M) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, 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.
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 +44% since the first grant, against +30% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- WRWe Resolve2× · 2022–2023 · $195k · revenue +44% · 78% of their budget
- MLMID-MINNESOTA LEGAL ASSISTANCE2× · 2022–2023 · $150k · revenue +33%
- ILIMMIGRANT LAW CENTER OF MINNESOTA INC2× · 2022–2023 · $125k · revenue +214%
Funded once
- CUCOMMUNITIES UNITED AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITYone grant, 2022 · $1.0M · revenue -1988%
Alliance for Global Justice Corpone grant, 2022 · $350k · revenue -51%- MSMN SOLIDARITY FUNDone grant, 2020 · $293k
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 advance the success of women attorneys and strive for a just society.
Minnesota Voice is a collaboration of organizations working toward permanent change in social, racial, and economic justice by increasing civic engagement and voter participation across the state.
Crime and communities violence interve
The minnesota freedom fund pays criminal bail and immigration bonds for those who cannot otherwise afford to as we seek to end discriminatory, coercive, and oppressive jailing.
To ensure that all people and communities have the power and resources to make sexual and reproductive health decisions with self-determination.
Mixed Blood Theatre Company uses theater to disrupt injustice. We are a social justice organization catalyzing action and change through art. Our work is guided by deep community engagement and rooted in radical hospitality.
Founded in 2010, minnesotans for lawsuit reform (mnflr) is a statewide non-profit organization dedicated to improving minnesota by promoting a fair, efficient and predictable state civil justice system,which benefits all minnesotans and…
Seattle Clemency Project's mission is to increase access to justice for reformed individuals serving sentences that no longer serve a purpose and to prevent deportations that fracture communities. We do this by matching them with free,…
Detention Watch Network seeks to end the cruel system of immigration detention via programs of grassroots organizing, strategic communications, and collective advocacy.
To develop and advocate for public policy that makes Minnesota's economy more prosperous and fair for all Minnesotans.
Promote civic engagement by the African American community in Minneapolis, MN and surrounding communities. The goal of Lights On is to create a sense of agency within the community by educating members about the institutions that affect…
Protect Minnesota promotes a culture of health and safety for all Minnesotans by preventing gun violence through research education advocacy and community investment. We emphasize prevention using a public health model and we seek to build…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance and the most unlike its peers is George Floyd Global Memorial. 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 11 years old; the field is 18. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 18% of your grantees by number, and just 10% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
22 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. 22 of the 28 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 TIDES CENTER ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITIES UNITED AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA FREEDOM FUND ACTION ↗
- Who funds Alliance for Global Justice Corp ↗
- Who funds We Resolve ↗
- Who funds MID-MINNESOTA LEGAL ASSISTANCE ↗
- Who funds THE FRESHET COLLECTIVE ↗
- Who funds IMMIGRANT LAW CENTER OF MINNESOTA INC ↗
- Who funds The Advocates For Human Rights ↗
- Who funds MN8 ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA JUSTICE RESEARCH CENTER ↗
- Who funds UNTIL WE ARE ALL FREE MOVEMENT ↗
- Who funds THE NETWORK FOR BETTER FUTURES DBA BETTER FUTURES MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS ↗
- Who funds AFGHAN CULTURAL SOCIETY OF MN ↗
- Who funds POWER OF PEOPLE LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds WE ARE ALL CRIMINALS ↗
- Who funds Positive Image ↗
- Who funds JEWISH COMMUNITY ACTION ↗
- Who funds ZAKAH AID AND CHARITY ASSISTING HUMANITY ↗
- Who funds GEORGE FLOYD GLOBAL MEMORIAL ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST INDIAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CENTER NWICDC ↗
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: Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · The Minneapolis Foundation · The McKnight Foundation · Women's Foundation of Minnesota · Otto Bremer Trust · Headwaters Foundation for Justice · Fr Bigelow Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · BCBSM Foundation Inc · Propel Nonprofits · Pohlad Family Foundation · Takeaction Mn Education 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 Minnesota Freedom Fund 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.