· Public charity
Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council
To provide promotion, technical and developmental assistance and grants to non-profit arts organizations, community groups, schools and individual artists.
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.
The 57 grants below total $420,545 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $705,400 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $284,855 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MINNESOTA OVER 60 BAND | $9,000 |
| HACER | $9,000 |
| CARNEGIE ART CENTER | $9,000 |
| THE GRAND CENTER FOR ARTS & CULTURE | $9,000 |
| MINNESOTA SONGWRITER SANCTUARY | $9,000 |
| CITY OF GREEN ILSE | $9,000 |
| OLD TOWN MANKATO DAY OF THE DEAD | $9,000 |
| CITY CENTER PARTNERSHIP | $9,000 |
| MADELIA ARTS COLLABORATIVE | $9,000 |
| IMAGINE MARTIN | $9,000 |
| UNITING CULTURES MULTICULTURAL FIE | $9,000 |
| PROJECT GEM | $8,313 |
| BLUE EARTH VALLEY CONCERT ASSOC | $8,313 |
| PROMUSICA MINNESOTA | $8,313 |
| GOOD THUNDER READING SERIES | $8,313 |
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 (FY19–25, $59k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, 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.
59 repeat relationships — 47 still active in FY2025, 12 since wound down; 8 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, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $53k 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
- FOFAIRMONT OPERA HOUSE INC9× · 2017–2025 · $89k · revenue +74%
- SSSTATE STREET THEATRE CO9× · 2017–2025 · $84k · revenue +386%
- ACARTS CENTER OF SAINT PETER INC9× · 2017–2025 · $80k · revenue +91%
Funded once
- SMSOUTHERN MINNESOTA INDEPENDENT LIVING ENTERPRISES & SERVICES INCone grant, 2024 · $9k · revenue +11%
- OTOLD TOWN COLLABORATIVEone grant, 2024 · $9k
- TMTHE MANKATO CHILDRENS CHORUSgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $8k · revenue +145%
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.
Support of the arts
Promotion of and presentation of dramatic arts
Music Saint Croix creates artistically excellent performances with exciting and unusual programming for the enjoyment of St. Croix Valley audiences.
The organization provides programming which allows musicians and audiences to experience and perform a wide range of music types.
Dedicated to nurturing, encouraging, and supporting arts in aitkin county mn.
The Lake Benton Opera House, one of the premiere historic buildings in southwest Minnesota. Home to an active community theatre, the Opera House has begun its second century in our community.
Founded in 1980 the Fargo Moorhead Choral Artists FMCA performs choral music of all styles and from all musical periods FMCA provides a musical outlet for the finest choral musicians in the region FMCA rehearses weekly on Tuesday evenings…
Strengthening the presence of the arts by supporting opportunities for arts creation, promotion, and education throughout the community in north central minnesota.
Present classical music concerts to the public.
We believe that performing arts can engage stimulate inspire challenge educate reflect,empower and nourish artists audiences and communities. We are committed to the cultural enrichment of Saint Pauls ethnically and economically diverse…
Jazz Central Studios is dedicated to preserving the innovative jazz arts in the Twin Cities. We present live music to the community in a non-commercial listening environment and encourage collaboration and education among musicians of wide…
Providing community affordable access to rare musicals
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mankato Symphony Orchestra Inc and the most unlike its peers is Dalekoarts. 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 27 years old; the field is 24. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 16% startups (under 5 years old) — 12% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 6% 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.
41 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. 41 of the 79 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 FAIRMONT OPERA HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds STATE STREET THEATRE CO ↗
- Who funds ARTS CENTER OF SAINT PETER INC ↗
- Who funds MARTIN COUNTY PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds WASECA ARTS COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds TWIN RIVERS COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds GRAND CENTER FOR ARTS & CULTURE INC ↗
- Who funds MANKATO BALLET COMPANY ↗
- Who funds MERELY PLAYERS COMMUNITY THEATRE ↗
- Who funds Dance Conservatory of Southern Minnesota ↗
- Who funds MANKATO YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds GREATER MANKATO GROWTH INC FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MANKATO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds DALEKOARTS ↗
- Who funds NEW ULM SUZUKI SCHOOL OF MUSIC ↗
- Who funds govenaires performing arts association ↗
- Who funds DAVORI PRODUCTIONS CO ↗
- Who funds LA GRANDE BANDE ↗
- Who funds Minnesota River Area Agency on Aging Inc ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA MAKERS & ARTISTS GUILD ↗
- Who funds MANKATO AREA 77 LANCERS MARCHING BAND PARENTS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds MANKATO FIGURE SKATING CLUB ↗
- Who funds BETHANY LUTHERAN COLLEGE INC ↗
- Who funds Minnesota New Country School ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA MUSIC COALITION ↗
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: Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation · Mankato Area Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Minnesota Community Foundation · Mayo Clinic Group Return · Valley News Foundation · Glen a Taylor Foundation · Minnesota Historical Society · L & N Andreas Foundation · Wild Compass Environmental Education · The McKnight Foundation · Jones Page Jacobson 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 Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council 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 Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council?
Find your warmest path to Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council 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.