· Private foundation
Sewell Family 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k20 grants · $63k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $50k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $51k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BALLET WORKS INC | $51,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL CELLO INSTITUTE | $16,000 |
| NATIONAL GHOST RANCH FOUNDATION | $13,000 |
| ANIMAL HUMANE SOCIETY | $11,000 |
| WALKER WEST MUSIC ACADEMY | $10,000 |
| WOMENS CLUB OF MINNEAPOLIS | $7,500 |
| COMUSICATION | $7,500 |
| TWIN CITIES CATALYST MUSIC | $5,000 |
| HELPING HANDS FOR RELIEF & DEVELOPM | $5,000 |
| CREATIVE ENTERPRISE ZONE | $5,000 |
| ST PAUL CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC | $5,000 |
| THE WILDCAT SACTUARY | $4,000 |
| SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS | $3,000 |
| BETH GRACZYK PRODUCTIONS INC | $3,000 |
| RUFF START RESCUE | $2,500 |
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 (FY17–23, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 49% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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.
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.
40 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2024, 27 since wound down; 12 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, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $51k 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
- ICInternational Cello Institute8× · 2017–2024 · $93k · revenue +55%
- AHAnimal Humane Society8× · 2017–2024 · $85k · revenue +28%
- SHSECOND HARVEST HEARTLAND4× · 2020–2023 · $43k · revenue +31%
Funded once
- ISICON SAM TEMPLE DANCESone grant, 2018 · $15k
- HHHOPKINS HIGH SCHOOLone grant, 2019 · $14k
- MFMINNEAPOLIS FOUNDATION-NORTHSIDE FUone grant, 2020 · $10k
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.
The minnesota orchestra mission is to enrich, inspire and serve our community as an enduring symphony orchestra internationally recognized for its artistic excellence.
Theater mu produces great performances born of arts, equity, and justice from the heart of the asian american experience.
Artaria centers on string quartet performance and education in minnesota. it is committed to presenting inspiring performances, to mentoring string players of all ages, and to illuminate the world's great repertoire of chamber music to a…
The guthrie theater engages exceptional theater artists in the exploration of both classic and contemporary plays, connecting the community we serve to one another and to the world. through its extraordinary artists, staff and facility,…
The mission of minnesota public radio is creating the future of public media by amplifying voices to inform, include, and inspire.
A performing arts circus school dedicated to inspiring artistry and confidence.
To enrich the Twin Cities community by sharing distinctive and engaging chamber orchestra performances. We are committed to inclusivity and strive to provide all people in our community with opportunities to connect with our music.
Mcad provides a transformative education within a community of support for creative students of all backgrounds to work, collaborate, and lead with confidence in a dynamic, interconnected world.
Mity's mission is to inspire and challenge intellectually curious students to pursue their passions within a diverse, inclusive community and empower them by building skills and relationships for lifelong success.
Minnesota youth symphonies (mys) enriches and inspires talented k-12 orchestral musicians by providing professional, comprehensive educational experiences, and thrills audiences with outstanding performances of orchestral repertoire.
Arts Midwest works collaboratively with private and public arts supporters to support, inform, and celebrate arts organizations and creative communities across the Midwest. Our mission is to build unprecedented opportunity across the…
The great northern celebrates our cold, creative winters through ten days of diverse programming that invigorate mind and body. in an era of changing climate that threatens our signature season, we seek to create community, inspire action,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Springboard for the Arts and the most unlike its peers is Spring Farm Sanctuary. 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 29 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 17% 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 10% 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.
67 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. 67 of the 104 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 BALLET WORKS INC ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL GRASSROOTS ↗
- Who funds International Cello Institute ↗
- Who funds Animal Humane Society ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST HEARTLAND ↗
- Who funds THE WOMAN'S CLUB OF MINNEAPOLIS ↗
- Who funds COMMUSICATION ↗
- Who funds EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds The Arts Partnership ↗
- Who funds SCHUBERT CLUB THE ↗
- Who funds TWIN CITIES PUBLIC TELEVISION INC ↗
- Who funds LUNDSTRUM CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS DBA LUNDSTRUM PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds MOUNDS PARK ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL GHOST RANCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds REIF ARTS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds ALIGHT ↗
- Who funds SPRING FARM SANCTUARY ↗
- Who funds GIVING VOICE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds WALKER WEST MUSIC ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Recycling Association of Minnesota ↗
- Who funds NORTH HOUSE FOLK SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds THE GRETTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Great River School Charter School No 4105-07 ↗
- Who funds THE ST PAUL CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC ↗
- Who funds TWIN CITIES CATALYST MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds THE JUNGLE THEATER ↗
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: Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · The McKnight Foundation · The Minneapolis Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Hrk Foundation · Hardenbergh Foundation · Fr Bigelow Foundation · Anna M Heilmaier Charitable Fdn · Xcel Energy Foundation · Margaret a Cargill Foundation · William Boss Foundation · The Jamf Nation Global 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 Sewell Family 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.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Sewell Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sewell Family 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.