· Private foundation
Robert Sonsteng Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k6 grants · $27k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $140k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BENSON PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $50,000 |
| OUR REDEEMER'S LUTHERAN CHURCH | $29,000 |
| WEST ZION CHURCH | $25,500 |
| SWIFT COUNTY FAIR ASSOC | $15,000 |
| CITY OF BENSON | $15,000 |
| BENSON AREA CARES 4 KIDS | $13,000 |
| BENSON PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $12,000 |
| OUR REDEEMER'S LUTHERAN CHURCH | $10,000 |
| J & J'S TINY TEACHER | $10,000 |
| SUNBURG AMBULANCE SERVICES | $10,000 |
| SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS CHURCH | $8,600 |
| Individual grant recipient | $7,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $4,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY21–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 5% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
7 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 67% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $71k went to new ones.
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
- BPBENSON PUBLIC SCHOOLS3× · 2021–2024 · $127k
- SCSWIFT COUNTY BENSON HOSPITAL2× · 2021–2023 · $100k
- OROUR REDEEMER LUTHERAN CHURCH3× · 2021–2024 · $53k
Funded once
- MSMINI SOTA AG MUSEUMone grant, 2023 · $30k
- EZEAST ZION LUTHERAN CHURCHone grant, 2021 · $10k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2021 · $5k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
1 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. 1 of the 22 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.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Robert Sonsteng 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.