· Public charity
Northstar Education Finance Inc
To foster, aid, encourage and assist the pursuit of higher education by reducing the cost of higher education through the total higher education (the) loan program and additionally through a grants program.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WALLIN EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $8,374,379 |
| COLLEGE POSSIBLE | $1,447,000 |
| ACHIEVE TWIN CITIES | $530,696 |
| JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT NORTH FOUNDATION | $500,000 |
| PAGE EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $492,500 |
| CRISTO REY JESUIT HIGH SCHOOL | $330,050 |
| ST CATHERINE UNIVERSITY | $250,000 |
| METROPOLITAN STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $250,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION | $250,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of your 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 +72% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 0 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.5M 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
- WEWALLIN EDUCATION PARTNERS9× · 2017–2025 · $28M · revenue +72% · 84% of their budget
- CPCOLLEGE POSSIBLE INC9× · 2017–2025 · $8.0M · revenue +79%
- PEPAGE EDUCATION FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $2.1M · revenue +69%
Funded once
- ATACHIEVE TWIN CITIESone grant, 2025 · $531k · revenue 0%
- JAJUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT NORTH FOUNDATIONone grant, 2025 · $500k · revenue 0% · 29% of their budget
- MSMETROPOLITAN STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2025 · $250k · revenue 0%
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.
Enriched by the lasallian catholic heritage, saint mary's university of minnesota awakens, nurtures, and empowers learners to ethical lives of service and leadership.
Endicott college offers students a vibrant academic environment that remains true to its founding principle of integrating professional and liberal arts with experiential learning. for more information see schedule o.
Peer power foundation hires, trains, and deploys college students to be success coaches in economically disadvantaged high schools. (expanded mission on schedule o)these success coaches work primarily inside of english, math, and science…
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
Aascu is a washington, d.c. based higher education association that represents the sector of over 500 regional public colleges, universities, and systems whose members share a learning and teaching centered culture, a commitment to…
Augsburg university educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders.the augsburg experience is supported by an engaged community that is committed to intentional diversity in its…
Minnesota state college southeast foundation assists the college in achieving excellence in technical education for employment by developing financial and community resources for students, employers, and communities within our service area.
The niu foundation's mission is to energize and connect the private sector with the niu community to secure and steward resources that support the future and growth of niu.
10,000 degrees is a leading college success nonprofit in the san francisco bay area. we help students from low-income backgrounds gain access to and complete higher education to positively impact their communities and the world.…
Western new england university, a comprehensive private institution with a tradition of excellence in teaching and scholarship and a commitment to service, awards undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in various departments from…
Lewis & clark is a premier private higher education institution offering an exceptional education in an inclusive environment. by fostering critical thinking, innovation, creativity, civic engagement, and leadership, both inside and…
Point foundation supports the educational aspirations of lgbtq+ and ally students to become impactful leaders in their lives, careers, and communities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University of Minnesota Foundation and the most unlike its peers is St Catherine University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 of the 9 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 WALLIN EDUCATION PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE POSSIBLE INC ↗
- Who funds PAGE EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ACHIEVE TWIN CITIES ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT NORTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ST CATHERINE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds METROPOLITAN STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
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: Xcel Energy Foundation · Linsmayer James B Fdn Tr-Main · Otto Bremer Trust · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift 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 Northstar Education Finance Inc 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Northstar Education Finance Inc?
Find your warmest path to Northstar Education Finance Inc 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.