· Private foundation
Nicholson Family 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k131 grants · $331k
- $10k–50k23 grants · $448k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $123k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PARK SQUARE THEATER COMPANY | $61,687 |
| RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC | $61,556 |
| MN HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $43,237 |
| COMMONBOND COMMUNITIES | $34,401 |
| WILDER FOUNDATION AMHERST H | $32,312 |
| METRO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $29,837 |
| ST PAUL PARKS AND CONSERVANCY | $27,750 |
| GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY | $25,000 |
| LISTENING HOUSE OF ST PAUL | $25,000 |
| ALLINA HEALTH FOUNDATION | $24,467 |
| COMO FRIENDS | $19,100 |
| ORDWAY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ART | $18,000 |
| TWIN CITIES PUBLIC TELEVISION INC | $17,600 |
| HISTORY THEATRE INC | $17,500 |
| MOUNDS PARK ACADEMY | $16,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Where your grant dollars land — across the US and around the world.
Which US states your grants reach
Grants placed by each grantee’s location, read from the 990 filings.
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 +34% since the first grant, against +22% for the ones you funded once.
204 repeat relationships — 143 still active in FY2024, 61 since wound down; 8 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $39k 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
- TFTHE FRIENDS OF THE SAINT PAUL PUBLIC LIBRARY8× · 2017–2024 · $195k · revenue +30%
- MPMOUNDS PARK ACADEMY8× · 2017–2024 · $109k · revenue +75%
ST PAUL ACADEMY AND SUMMIT SCHOOL8× · 2017–2024 · $106k · revenue +26%
Funded once
- MMMINNESOTA MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ARTgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $100k · revenue +376%
- HSHISTORIC SUMMIT AVENUEgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $15k · revenue +44%
- MCMACALASTER COLLEGEone grant, 2017 · $10k
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 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…
To be the leading voice of medicine to make minnesota the healthiest state and the best place to practice.
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…
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,…
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…
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
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 mission of the greater msp partnership is to accelerate regional competitiveness and inclusive economic growth through job creation, capital investment and execution of strategic initiatives. the partnership works to strengthen our…
Move minnesota leads the movement for an equitable and sustainable transportation system that puts people first. we are passionate about connecting communities, ending the climate crisis, expanding access to jobs and resources, and…
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…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
MCF is a vibrant philanthropic community connecting, strengthening and mobilizing the power of philanthropy to advance prosperity and equity.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Heritage Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Summit Avenue Residential Preservation Association. 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 42 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 17% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
181 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. 181 of the 355 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 SAINT PAUL & MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds THE FRIENDS OF THE SAINT PAUL PUBLIC LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds GREATER TWIN CITIES UNITED WAY ↗
- Who funds MOUNDS PARK ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds ST PAUL ACADEMY AND SUMMIT SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds OceanitesInc ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN THE UNITED STATES ↗
- Who funds THE HISTORY THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds PEOPLE INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds COMMONBOND COMMUNITIES ↗
- Who funds COMO FRIENDS ↗
- Who funds ALLINA HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds University of St Thomas ↗
- Who funds NORTHERN STAR COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds TWIN CITIES PUBLIC TELEVISION INC ↗
- Who funds LISTENING HOUSE OF ST PAUL INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF THE TWIN CITIES ↗
- Who funds SCIENCE MUSEUM OF MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds SCHUBERT CLUB THE ↗
- Who funds SAINT PAUL POLICE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CANVAS HEALTH INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER ↗
- Who funds LIBERTY CLASSICAL ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Gillette Children's Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE ↗
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 · Hardenbergh Foundation · Fr Bigelow Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · The Minneapolis Foundation · Otto Bremer Trust · The Hubbard Broadcasting Foundation · Hrk Foundation · Fred C and Katherine B Andersen Foundation · Osilas Foundation · The K Foundation · Target 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 Nicholson Family 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.
- Lewis & Clark College — 2% of income from government
- Connecticut College — 0% of income from government
- The Rectory School Inc — 0% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Nicholson Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Nicholson Family 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.