· Public charity
Blaze Credit Union
BLAZE CREDIT UNION's purpose is to create better lives for our members.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 33 grants below total $601,457 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $621,457 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $20,000 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.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k13 grants · $94k
- $10k–50k18 grants · $331k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $176k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SALVATION ARMY NORTHERN DIVISION | $101,250 |
| THE FRIENDS OF THE ST PAUL LIBRARY | $75,000 |
| ORDWAY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS | $45,000 |
| REGIONS HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $40,428 |
| THE BOND BETWEEN | $35,000 |
| COMO FRIENDS | $34,250 |
| SPARE KEY | $21,500 |
| BECAUSE I SAID I WOULD | $20,000 |
| BESTPREP | $17,500 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| HUNGER RELATED EVENTS | $11,000 |
| SMALL SUMS | $11,000 |
| WASECA AREA NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICE CENTER | $10,050 |
| JIM'S TEAM 4 DIABETES FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| OPPORTUNITY PARTNERS | $10,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $46k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 87% 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.
18 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down; 17 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, 64% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $198k 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
- TFTHE FRIENDS OF THE SAINT PAUL PUBLIC LIBRARY3× · 2020–2024 · $102k · revenue +61%
- TBTHE BOND BETWEEN4× · 2021–2024 · $101k · revenue +51%
- CFCOMO FRIENDS3× · 2022–2024 · $98k · revenue +11%
Funded once
- JAJULIE AND KIRK COUSINS FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $51k · revenue ×20
- NNETGIVERone grant, 2020 · $24k
- UHUNITED HEROES LEAGUEone grant, 2023 · $20k · revenue -3%
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 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…
MCF is a vibrant philanthropic community connecting, strengthening and mobilizing the power of philanthropy to advance prosperity and equity.
Purpose: we inspire, advocate and invest to advance community visions. continued on sch o
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…
To be the leading voice of medicine to make minnesota the healthiest state and the best place to practice.
Creating powerful advocacy to enhance economic vitality in the minneapolis-st. paul region.
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…
Mn community measurement empowers stakeholders with meaningful information to drive improvement.
To provide the highest level of stewardship for university donors through professional management and oversight of the university of minnesota foundation's assets by creating a focused investment environment with clarity of purpose,…
The organization's mission is to bring stakeholders together to promote prosperity and long-term growth of minnesota's economy.
The minnesota hospital foundation works on strategies that include data-led quality and safety improvement, education, research, training and leadership to improve the health of minnesotans.
The mission of the greater msp partnership is to accelerate regional competitiveness and inclusive economic growth through job creation, capital investment and execution of strategic initiatives. the partnership works to strengthen our…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Feed My Starving Children Inc and the most unlike its peers is Julie and Kirk Cousins Foundation. 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 30 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% 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.
54 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. 54 of the 59 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 REGIONS HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE FRIENDS OF THE SAINT PAUL PUBLIC LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds THE BOND BETWEEN ↗
- Who funds COMO FRIENDS ↗
- Who funds BLAZE CREDIT UNION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BFW INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATION AND RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds JULIE AND KIRK COUSINS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ORDWAY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds BESTPREP ↗
- Who funds BECAUSE I SAID I WOULD ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SPARE KEY ↗
- Who funds TWIN CITIES HABITAT FOR HUMANITY ↗
- Who funds UNITED HEROES LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds HUNGER RELATED EVENTS ↗
- Who funds OPPORTUNITY PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS MINNESOTA INC ↗
- Who funds WOODBURY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S CANCER RESEARCH FUND ↗
- Who funds CIRCUS OF THE STAR ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds AMHERST H WILDER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST HEARTLAND ↗
- Who funds FEED MY STARVING CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds AT HOME GROUP ↗
- Who funds EVERY MEAL ↗
- Who funds METRO MEALS ON WHEELS INC ↗
- Who funds Pageant of Hope Incorporated ↗
- Who funds Area Neighborhood Service Center Inc ↗
- Who funds BOYS' CLUB OF DULUTH ↗
- Who funds Lewis Sports Foundation ↗
- Who funds ANGEL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RANDY SHAVER CANCER RESEARCH AND COMMUNITY FUND ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA WARRIORS ICE HOCKEY ↗
- Who funds JIMS TEAM 4 DIABETES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Gillette Children's Hospital Foundation ↗
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 Richard M Schulze Family Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · Otto Bremer Trust · The Minneapolis Foundation · Pohlad Family Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Margaret a Cargill Foundation · The Hubbard Broadcasting Foundation · Nicholson Family Foundation · Fr Bigelow Foundation · The Graco 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 Blaze Credit Union 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.