· Private foundation
Robert S Starr Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TRINITY FIRST LUTHERAN SCHOOL | $4,000 |
| KINDERING - SIBLING SUPPORT PROJECT | $4,000 |
| START SENIOR SOLUTIONS | $3,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $3,000 |
| BOOKS FOR AFRICA | $3,000 |
| UNION GOSPEL MISSION | $3,000 |
| CAMP ODAYIN | $3,000 |
| CHAIR-ITY INC | $3,000 |
| FEED MY STARVING CHILDREN | $3,000 |
| CAN DO CANINES | $2,500 |
| SALVATION ARMY | $2,000 |
| MINNESOTA TEEN CHALLENGE | $2,000 |
| GLOBAL HEALTH MINISTRIES | $2,000 |
| CROSS VIEW LUTHERAN CHURCH | $2,000 |
| CARINGBRIDGE | $1,000 |
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 (FY22–25, $11k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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 +83% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
21 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 1 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1k 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
- MTMinnesota Teen Challenge Inc8× · 2017–2025 · $29k · revenue +88%
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC8× · 2017–2025 · $24k · revenue +98%- UGUNION GOSPEL MISSION INC8× · 2017–2025 · $24k · revenue +246%
Funded once
- TTTHRESHOLD TO NEW LIFEone grant, 2023 · $2k · revenue +5%
- CICROSSWAYS INTERNATIONAL INCone grant, 2017 · $1k · revenue -34%
- CVCROSS VIEW LUTHERAN CHURCH - GUATEMALA WATER PROJECTone grant, 2021 · $1k
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.
End hunger together.
Lifeworks' mission is to partner with people with disabilities to drive change by increasing opportunity and access in the community.
To encourage, promote, support, and elect pro-choice women of all political parties to all levels of public office in minnesota.
At Catholic Charities, we focus our efforts around three core pillars: Food Access, Mental Health and Housing. Guided by our mission - to serve and enhance human dignity for all people - we provide essential services and foster a sense of…
MCF is a vibrant philanthropic community connecting, strengthening and mobilizing the power of philanthropy to advance prosperity and equity.
Providing innovative and life-enriching services for children, adolescents, and adults with disabilities.
Since 1986, open your heart to the hungry and homeless has worked to ensureevery minnesotan is free from hunger and homelessness. by partnering with organizations serving those in need, we grow donor engagement and raise awareness to…
Avivo increases well-being through recovery and career advancement while working to end homelessness.
The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits informs, promotes, connects and strengthens individual nonprofits and the nonprofit sector.
Mercy Health will provide assistance, support and direction to all of the health care institutions and activities operated and maintained by its Subsidiaries. The mission of Mercy Health in performing these activities shall be to provide a…
Empowering people of all abilities to reach their full potential. we provide individualized services that maximize independence, boosts community engagement and improves physical and emotional well-being.
Sharing the gospel while providing hope and transformation.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Feed My Starving Children Inc and the most unlike its peers is World Bicycle Relief Nfp. 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 28 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 29 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 Minnesota Teen Challenge Inc ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds UNION GOSPEL MISSION INC ↗
- Who funds FEED MY STARVING CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds BOOKS FOR AFRICA INC ↗
- Who funds CAMP ODAYIN ↗
- Who funds START SENIOR SOLUTIONS ↗
- Who funds CAN DO CANINES ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL HEALTH MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds VEAP Inc ↗
- Who funds Animal Humane Society ↗
- Who funds CHAIR-ITY ↗
- Who funds Nanze Childrens Services Inc ↗
- Who funds METAVIVOR RESEARCH AND SUPPORT INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD BICYCLE RELIEF NFP ↗
- Who funds THE GATHERING PLACE ↗
- Who funds THRESHOLD TO NEW LIFE ↗
- Who funds WORLD VISION INC ↗
- Who funds CROSSWAYS INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds PREGNANCY CHOICES LIFECARE CENTER I ↗
- Who funds LITERACY MATTERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CaringBridge ↗
- Who funds GIRLS ON THE RUN MINNESOTA 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 Minneapolis Foundation · The Richard M Schulze Family Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · Thrivent Financial for Lutherans · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Network for Good · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc
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 Robert S Starr 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.
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 Robert S Starr Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Robert S Starr 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.