How much does Sandcastle Foundation give?

Sandcastle Foundation reported 41 grants totaling $940,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 27 and 34 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Sandcastle Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (22%), Youth Development (15%), Housing & Shelter (13%).

Who are Sandcastle Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: University of St Thomas ($370k), Ujamaa Place ($348k), Boys and Girls Clubs of the Twin Cities ($200k).

Does Sandcastle Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 6% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Sandcastle Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Sandcastle Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Ch Robinson Worldwide Foundation, Pohlad Family Foundation, Otto Bremer Trust.

Where is Sandcastle Foundation based?

Sandcastle Foundation is based in MN.

Sandcastle Foundation

Sandcastle Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Sandcastle 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.

$940k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$75k

Largest

01What it funds

0195% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Education$1.0MYouth Development$693kHousing & Shelter$600kHealth$540kHuman Services$430kAnimals$310kCrime & Legal$228kEnvironment$200kOther$0

02FY2025 · 41 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k1 grant · $5k
$10k–50k36 grants · $690k
$50k–250k4 grants · $245k

$15,000

Median grant

States reached

$11M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
UNIVERSITY OF ST THOMAS	$75,000
UJAMAA PLACE	$70,000
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY	$50,000
AFRICAN AMERICAN CHILD WELLNESS INSTITUTE	$50,000
CRESCENT COVE	$40,000
BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF THE TWIN CITIES	$40,000
CONSTELLATION FUND	$35,000
EDEN PRAIRIE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION	$30,000
AEON	$30,000
PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF MINNESOTA NORTH	$30,000
VEAP INC	$25,000
SUMMIT ACADEMY OIC	$25,000
SIMPSON HOUSING SERVICES INC	$20,000
PEOPLE REACHING OUT TO OTHER PEOPLE	$20,000
FOREST PARK FOREVER INC	$20,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $665k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 95% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

92%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$4.3M · 52 repeat orgs$395k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +47% since the first grant, against +7% for those funded once.

52 repeat relationships: 23 still active in FY2025, 29 since wound down; 17 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$4.3M

$65k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+47%

+7%

Still filing today

77%

67%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 64% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $330k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

EducationHuman ServicesHealthYouth DevelopmentCrime & LegalAnimalsOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

UO
University of St Thomas
9× · 2017–2025 · $370k · revenue +49%
UP
UJAMAA PLACE
9× · 2017–2025 · $348k · revenue +142%
BA
BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF THE TWIN CITIES
8× · 2018–2025 · $200k · revenue +49%

Funded once

TB
THE BRIDGE FOR YOUTH
one grant, 2023 · $20k · revenue +7%
GA
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS COLLEGE
one grant, 2017 · $20k · revenue -3%
CC
CONSTRUCTION CAREERS FOUNDATION
one grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue -35%

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Minnesota Business Partnership

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…

—

Minnesota Medical Association

To be the leading voice of medicine to make minnesota the healthiest state and the best place to practice.

—

Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and Industry

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…

—

Minnesota Council on Foundations

MCF is a vibrant philanthropic community connecting, strengthening and mobilizing the power of philanthropy to advance prosperity and equity.

—

Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce

Creating powerful advocacy to enhance economic vitality in the minneapolis-st. paul region.

—

The Minneapolis Foundation

The foundation cultivates generosity by taking action on the greatest civic, social, and economic needs partnering with nonprofits, facilitating grantmaking, driving research and advocacy, and providing services to donors seeking to make a…

Philanthropy

Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation

Purpose: we inspire, advocate and invest to advance community visions. continued on sch o

Philanthropy

St Paul Transportation Management Organization

Move minnesota leads the movement for an equitable and sustainable transportation system that puts people first. we are passionate about connecting communities, ending the climate crisis, expanding access to jobs and resources, and…

Environment

Minneapolis Downtown Council

To create an extraordinary downtown minneapolis, applying the core values of leadership, collaboration, advocacy and innovation.

—

Twin Cities Diversity in Practice

To attract, recruit, advance, and retain attorneys of color in the twin cities through education and collaboration with member organizations.

Community Improvement

Mn Community Measurement

Mn community measurement empowers stakeholders with meaningful information to drive improvement.

Health

Minnesota State University Student Association Inc

Led by minnesota state university students, we are the inclusive voice for all future, current, and former students. we actively work to represent and support minnesota state university students and advocate at a campus, state, and federal…

Education

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Interfaith Outreach and Community Partners; the most unlike its peers is Cornerstone. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

56 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 56 of the 76 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

56/56

Grantees still filing

38/56

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,872,500Education$875,000Human Services$665,000Youth Development$445,000Health$395,000Housing & Shelter$270,000Crime & Legal$232,500

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Ch Robinson Worldwide FoundationSD27.9× affinity12 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Ch Robinson Worldwide Foundation · Pohlad Family Foundation · Otto Bremer Trust · The Minneapolis Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · The Richard M Schulze Family Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Margaret a Cargill Foundation · The K Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · The McKnight Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Sandcastle Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Sandcastle Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

18report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Sandcastle Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Sandcastle 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.

Play a game based on Sandcastle’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home