· Private foundation
Northwest Area 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 $10k26 grants · $95k
- $10k–50k15 grants · $213k
- $50k–250k84 grants · $9.6M
- $250k+24 grants · $8.3M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NATIVE AMERICAN YOUTH AND FAMILY CENTER | $700,000 |
| NEXUS COMMUNITY PARTNERS | $500,000 |
| THUNDER VALLEY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION | $500,000 |
| THE DIRECTORS COUNCIL | $500,000 |
| HEADWATERS FOUNDATION FOR JUSTICE | $500,000 |
| OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY - INDIAN AFFAIRS | $500,000 |
| WORKING PARTNERSHIPS INCORPORATED | $450,000 |
| SOCIAL JUSTICE FUND NORTHWEST | $450,000 |
| OWEESTA CORPORATION | $400,000 |
| SAGE FOUNDATION INC | $300,000 |
| CHIEF SEATTLE CLUB | $270,000 |
| AAPI CIVIC ENGAGEMENT FUND | $250,000 |
| SEEDING JUSTICE | $250,000 |
| CRAFT3 | $250,000 |
| MOUNTAIN SHADOW ASSOCIATION | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $21.6M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 66% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 6% of Northwest Area Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +62% since the first grant, against +41% for the ones you funded once.
224 repeat relationships — 107 still active in FY2024, 117 since wound down; 29 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, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.8M 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
- OCOWEESTA CORPORATION7× · 2017–2024 · $4.1M · revenue +803% · 86% of their budget
- BWBuild Wealth MN Inc8× · 2017–2024 · $2.3M · revenue +446%
- TDTHE DIRECTORS COUNCIL8× · 2017–2024 · $2.2M · revenue +149% · 97% of their budget
Funded once
- TVTHUNDER VALLEY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONone grant, 2020 · $325k
- HHOMESIGHTone grant, 2019 · $300k · revenue +2%
- CSCONFEDERATED SALISH AND KOOTENAIone grant, 2018 · $260k
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.
Grow businesses, build wealth and increase reinvestement in the african communities of minnesota
Research, develop, and administer social and economic development programs to meet the needs of indian and native american communities and individuals residing in the state of california. also for the conservation and preservation of…
The intertribal agriculture council was founded in 1987 to pursue and promote the conservation, development and use of our agricultural resources of american indian and alaska native tribes.
To provide culturally unique initiatives, housing & entrepreneurial programs that will strengthen the american indian community
Washington Indian Civil Rights Commission is led by and for Indigenous people, and envisions a just society in which we are treated with honor, fairness and respect. Our mission is to uphold our individual civil rights through education…
Division of indian work's mission is to support and strengthen urban american indian people through culturally-based education, traditional healing approaches, and leadership development. we achieve this by focusing on community and…
To grow tribal economies by strengthening tribal finance.
The washington area community investment fund (wacif) is a nonprofit community loan fund focused on increasing equity and economic opportunity in the washington, dc area's underserved communities. wacif's mission is driven is driven by…
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 improve the quality of life for native hawaiians through community partnerships that provide educational opportunities and promote self-sufficiency.
The affiliated tribes of northwest indians is founded on the principles of unity and cooperation among indian governments and people.
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ndn Fund Inc and the most unlike its peers is Network for Developing Conscious Communities Inc. 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 24 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
324 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. 324 of the 383 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 OWEESTA CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds THUNDER VALLEY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COR ↗
- Who funds NEXUS COMMUNITY PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds Build Wealth MN Inc ↗
- Who funds THE DIRECTORS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds CRAFT3 ↗
- Who funds NATIVE AMERICAN YOUTH AND FAMILY CENTER ↗
- Who funds BYRD BARR PLACE ↗
- Who funds UJAMAA PLACE ↗
- Who funds FIRST NATIONS DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds FIRST PEOPLES FUND ↗
- Who funds VENTURES ↗
- Who funds FOUR BANDS COMMUNITY FUND INC ↗
- Who funds NACDC Financial Services Inc ↗
- Who funds CHIEF SEATTLE CLUB ↗
- Who funds OPPORTUNITY LINK INC ↗
- Who funds WARM SPRINGS COMMUNITY ACTION TEAM ↗
- Who funds SOCIAL JUSTICE FUND NORTHWEST ↗
- Who funds SHARING OUR ROOTS ↗
- Who funds THE LAKOTA FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds NORTHSIDE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY NETWORK ↗
- Who funds TAALA FUND ↗
- Who funds Prepare and Prosper ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST INDIAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CENTER NWICDC ↗
- Who funds THE PEOPLES PARTNERS FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds WHITE EARTH INVESTMENT INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST NATIVE DEVELOPMENT FUND ↗
- Who funds NATIVE CDFI NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL TO LOCAL HEALTH INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds COMMUNIDADES LATINAS UNIDAS EN SERVICO INC ↗
- Who funds Working Partnerships Inc ↗
- Who funds PROSPERITY NOW ↗
- Who funds PACIFIC NORTHWEST TRIBAL LENDING FINANCIAL INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds Nimiipuu Community Development Fund ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds DAKOTA RESOURCES ↗
- Who funds Rural Community Development Resources ↗
- Who funds MAZASKA OWECASO OTIPI FINANCIAL INC ↗
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 McKnight Foundation · The Bush Foundation · Target Foundation · Otto Bremer Trust · First Nations Development Institute · Ndn Collective Inc · Fr Bigelow Foundation · Greater Twin Cities United Way · Headwaters Foundation for Justice · Women's Foundation of Minnesota · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Mortenson 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 Northwest Area 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.
- Nixyaawii Community Financial Services — 100% of income from government
- Yamhill Community Development Corp — 100% of income from government
- Neighborimpact — 68% of income from government
- Hacienda Community Development Corporation — 48% of income from government
- Community Lendingworks — 43% of income from government
- The Next Door Inc — 39% of income from government
- Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians Economic Development Corporation — 28% of income from government
- Samoa Pacific Development Corporation — 28% of income from government
- Warm Springs Community Action Team — 28% of income from government
- United Way of the Columbia-Willamette — 25% of income from government
- Native American Youth and Family Center — 23% of income from government
- New Avenues for Youth Inc — 20% of income from government
- Capaces Leadership Institute — 20% of income from government
- Willamette Valley Law Project Dba Pcun Foundation — 18% of income from government
- Coalition of Communities of Color — 15% of income from government
- Self Enhancement Inc — 14% of income from government
- Ecotrust — 14% of income from government
- Latino Community Association — 11% of income from government
- Micro Enterprise Services of Oregon — 5% of income from government
- The Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization — 4% of income from government
- Verde Inc — 3% of income from government
- CRAFT3 — 1% of income from government
- Seeding Justice — 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.