· Public charity
Northfield Shares
NORTHFIELD SHARES seeks to sustain and transform the northfield community by advancing philanthropy, inspiring volunteerism and promoting collaborative leadership.
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.
The 16 grants below total $829,165 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,049,325 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $220,160 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k2 grants · $18k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $141k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $671k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NORTHFIELD UNITED METHODIST | $137,100 |
| CARLETON COLLEGE | $137,100 |
| WOOSTER COLLEGE | $137,100 |
| CENTER FOR COURAGE & RENEWAL | $110,000 |
| EASTMAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC | $82,260 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA | $67,038 |
| NORTHFIELD HEALTHY COMMUNITY INITIATIVE | $34,086 |
| COMMUNITY ACTION CENTER | $24,329 |
| MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES | $20,800 |
| ST JOHN'S LUTHERAN CHURCH | $14,000 |
| GREAT RIVER SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL | $13,600 |
| WOMEN IN NORTHFIELD GIVING SUPPORT (WINGS) | $12,101 |
| FIFTY NORTH | $12,101 |
| OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL | $10,000 |
| CLEAN RIVER PARTNERS | $9,550 |
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 (FY17–24, $165k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, 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.
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 +59% since the first grant, against +1% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 7 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, 43% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $462k 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
- CCCARLETON COLLEGE5× · 2017–2024 · $1.4M · revenue +39%
- SOST OLAF COLLEGE2× · 2021–2023 · $510k · revenue +38%
- NSNorthfield Senior Citizens Inc FiftyNorth8× · 2017–2024 · $242k · revenue +14%
Funded once
- AFAMERICAN FRIENDS OF ASIAN RURAL INSTITUTE INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $489k · revenue +33%
- DUDOANE UNIVERSITYone grant, 2021 · $489k · revenue +1%
- FUFIRST UNITED CHURCH OF CHRISTone grant, 2021 · $489k
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 northland foundation supports northeastern minnesota people and communities working toward a future where everyone feels they belong and can thrive.
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
United way of northeastern minnesota invests in nonprofits, programs, and collaborations that equip and empower, creating opportunities for people to thrive in our communities.
Northland college's mission is to integrate undergraduate liberal arts studies with an environmental emphasis, enabling those it serves to address the challenges of the future.
North central university is a christian university with a commitment to academic excellence.
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,…
Engaging the community to end hunger
Cornell college offers an innovative and rigorous learning community where faculty and staff collaborate with students to develop the intellectual curiosity, creativity and moral courage necessary for a lifetime of learning and engaged…
MCF is a vibrant philanthropic community connecting, strengthening and mobilizing the power of philanthropy to advance prosperity and equity.
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…
Nebraska wesleyan university is an academic community dedicated to intellectual and personal growth within the context of a liberal arts education and in an environment of christian concern.
To be the catalyst for regional prosperity for all through collaborative action.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Northfield Healthy Community Initiative and the most unlike its peers is Rice County Neighbors United. 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 38 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 40 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 CARLETON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds ST OLAF COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF ASIAN RURAL INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds DOANE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Northfield Senior Citizens Inc FiftyNorth ↗
- Who funds NORTHFIELD HEALTHY COMMUNITY INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR COURAGE & RENEWAL ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ACTION CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE COLLEGE OF WOOSTER ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GREAT RIVER SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds HealthFinders Collaborative Inc ↗
- Who funds ROTARY CLUB OF NORTHFIELD ↗
- Who funds CLEAN RIVER PARTNERS INC ↗
- Who funds Rice County Neighbors United ↗
- Who funds NORTHFIELD ARTS GUILD ↗
- Who funds DAM PRESERVATION CORP ↗
- Who funds NORTHFIELD AREA FAMILY YMCA ↗
- Who funds VALLEY GROVE PRESERVATION SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds NORTHFIELD SOCCER ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Project Friendship Inc ↗
- Who funds OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL INC D/B/A OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL-US ↗
- Who funds MATTER ↗
- Who funds SHARING OUR ROOTS ↗
- Who funds FILMNORTH ↗
- Who funds DEFEAT OF JESSE JAMES DAYS COMMITTEE INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHFIELD SHARES ↗
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 · The American Center for Philanthropy Inc · Minnesota Community Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Rice County Area United Way · Youthprise · Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation · Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council Inc · Allina Health System · The McKnight Foundation · Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing · Otto Bremer Trust
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 Northfield Shares 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.