How much does The Bwbr Foundation give?

The Bwbr Foundation reported 69 grants totaling $70,700 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 21 and 68 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Bwbr Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (35%), Education (32%), Arts & Culture (11%).

Who are The Bwbr Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Minnesota Architectural Foundation ($20k), University of Minnesota Foundation ($18k), Canvas Health Inc ($13k).

Does The Bwbr Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 22% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Bwbr Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Bwbr Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Otto Bremer Trust, Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, Xcel Energy Foundation.

Where is The Bwbr Foundation based?

The Bwbr Foundation is based in MN.

The Bwbr Foundation

The Bwbr Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Bwbr Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$71k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$3k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Health$133kEducation$123kArts & Culture$43kHuman Services$21kFood & Nutrition$18kPhilanthropy$14kEnvironment$7kCommunity Improvement$5kOther$0

02FY2025 · 69 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$930k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
MAYO CLINIC	$3,000
AVERA HEALTH FOUNDATION	$3,000
UNIVERSITY OF MN FOUNDATION	$3,000
UNIVERSITY OF ST THOMAS	$2,000
HENNEPIN HEALTH FOUNDATION	$2,000
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN RIVER FALLS FOUNDATION	$2,000
LATINO ACADEMY OF WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT	$2,000
PINE REST FOUNDATION	$2,000
CANVAS HEALTH INC	$2,000
THE FAMILY PARTNERSHIP	$2,000
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION	$1,500
BOYS TOWN FOUNDATION	$1,000
JOURNEY MENTAL HEALTH CENTER INC	$1,000
UNITED WAY OF DANE COUNTY INC	$1,000
MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER INC	$1,000

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, $43k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 69% 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.

93%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$403k · 84 repeat orgs$30k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +18% since the first grant, against +17% for those funded once.

84 repeat relationships: 60 still active in FY2025, 24 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$403k

$26k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+18%

+17%

Still filing today

80%

48%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

HealthEducationHuman ServicesPhilanthropyArts & CultureFood & NutritionOther

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 MINNESOTA FOUNDATION
9× · 2017–2025 · $18k · revenue +105%
CH
CANVAS HEALTH INC
7× · 2019–2025 · $13k · revenue +90%
HH
HENNEPIN HEALTH FOUNDATION
8× · 2017–2025 · $13k · revenue +227%

Funded once

AM
AIA MINNESOTA - WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE FUND
one grant, 2018 · $4k
AM
AIA MINNESOTA - WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP SUMMIT-2019
one grant, 2018 · $3k
TA
THE ALLIANCE
one grant, 2020 · $2k

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 Medical Association

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

—

University of Minnesota Physicians

University of minnesota physicians serves as the integrated group practice for the university of minnesota medical school full-time faculty to provide the highest quality healthcare to patients and their families.university of minnesota…

Health

Minnesota Hospital Association

Advance the health of individuals and communities through leadership, advocacy and collaboration on behalf of minnesota hospitals and health systems. vision: minnesotans are healthy and have access to the right care at the right time in…

Community Improvement

The Medical College of Wisconsin Inc

The medical college of wisconsin (mcw) is a distinguished leader and innovator in the education and development of the next generation of physicians, (continued in schedule o)

Education

Trinity Health & Affiliates

Trinity health is committed to preserving and improving the quality of health of the people we serve. our mission is to excel at meeting the needs of the whole person through the provision of quality health care and health related services.

Health

Advantage Healthsaint Mary's Medical Group

We, advantage health/saint mary's medical group and trinity health, serve together in the spirit of the gospel as a compassionate and transforming healing presence within our communities.advantage health/saint mary's medical group…

Health

University of Minnesota Foundation Investment Advisors

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,…

Education

Minnesota Hospital Foundation

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.

—

Essentia Health

We are called to make a healthy difference in people's lives.

Health

University Family Physicians Inc

Engage actively and continuously in medical research, education and training in the practice of medicine in conjunction with the department of family medicine of the indiana university school of medicine and indiana university…

—

Mercy Health Partners

We, mercy health and trinity health, serve together in the spirit of the gospel as a compassionate and transforming healing presence within our communities.mercy health partners is a member of mercy health and trinity health.

—

United Hospital Foundation

United hospital foundation exists to enhance the health of united hospital patients and the wellness of the community we serve. the foundation, year after year, has proven that a true partnership between community and hospital guarantees…

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University of Minnesota Foundation; the most unlike its peers is The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra Society. 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

90 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

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 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 90 of the 118 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)

89/90

Grantees still filing

55/90

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$158,364Education$130,400Health$85,500Human Services$48,450Philanthropy$20,500Employment$5,500Arts & Culture$5,500

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.

Otto Bremer TrustMN38.9× affinity20 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Otto Bremer Trust · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · The Minneapolis Foundation · Fred C and Katherine B Andersen Foundation · The Richard M Schulze Family Foundation · Hardenbergh Foundation · Fr Bigelow Foundation · Andersen Corporate Foundation · Communitygiving · Nicholson Family Foundation · The American Center for Philanthropy Inc

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 The Bwbr Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Bwbr Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

29report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

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 The Bwbr Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Bwbr 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 Bwbr’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