· Private foundation
The Depot 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k16 grants · $51k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $276k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $232k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST LOUIS COUNTY - THE DEPOT | $149,000 |
| MINNESOTA BALLET | $83,346 |
| ST LOUIS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $49,808 |
| ZEITGEIST CENTER FOR ARTS AND COMMU | $30,000 |
| LAKE SUPERIOR RAILROAD MUSEUM | $29,480 |
| DULUTH SUPERIOR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $25,377 |
| MINNESOTA BALLET | $24,510 |
| THE OLD HILLSIDE LLC | $20,000 |
| LAKE SUPERIOR RAILROD MUSEUM | $19,874 |
| LAKE ARTS PROJECT | $16,159 |
| MINNESOTA BALLET | $13,780 |
| DULUTH SUPERIOR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $12,725 |
| ST LOUIS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $12,500 |
| ZEITGEIST CENTER FOR ARTS AND COMMU | $10,901 |
| LYRIC OPERA OF THE NORTH | $10,500 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 15%. 1% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +17% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
15 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $83k 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
- SLST LOUIS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY9× · 2017–2025 · $511k · revenue +37%
- MBMINNESOTA BALLET INC9× · 2017–2025 · $507k · revenue +13%
- LSLAKE SUPERIOR RAILROAD MUSUEM9× · 2017–2025 · $457k · revenue +62%
Funded once
- T2THE 24 HOUR COMPANYone grant, 2024 · $10k · revenue 0%
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.
Promotion of and presentation of dramatic arts
Inspire artists, audiences, and our greater southern wisconsin community to celabrate the art of theatre.
The mission of theater latte' da is to create new connections between story, music, artist and audience by exploring and expanding the art of musical theater.
Theater mu produces great performances born of arts, equity, and justice from the heart of the asian american experience.
History theatre entertains, educates and engages audiences by creating and producing new works that explore minnesota's past and the diverse american experience.
Dpc uses awe-inspiring puppetry as a vehicle for a better tomorrow. dpc collaborates with the local commmunity to create inclusive spaces that bring together detroit and hamtramck residents with artists from around the country. the works…
Schubert club creates inspiring musical experiences that contribute to the cultural vibrancy of the twin cities community through concert presentations, music education and student scholarship programs, and musuem exhibits.
Support of the arts
Arts presenter serving the greater Reedsburg area.
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,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Duluth Superior Symphony Associatio and the most unlike its peers is The Matinee Musicale Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 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. 12 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.
- Who funds DULUTH PLAYHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds ST LOUIS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA BALLET INC ↗
- Who funds LAKE SUPERIOR RAILROAD MUSUEM ↗
- Who funds DULUTH ART INSTITUTE ASSOC ↗
- Who funds DULUTH SUPERIOR SYMPHONY ASSOCIATIO ↗
- Who funds HISTORIC UNION DEPOT CORP ↗
- Who funds ZEITGEIST CENTER FOR ARTS AND COMMUNITY ↗
- Who funds DULUTH CHILDREN'S MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds LYRIC OPERA OF THE NORTH ↗
- Who funds THE 24 HOUR COMPANY ↗
- Who funds The Matinee Musicale Inc ↗
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: Lloyd K Johnson Foundation · Duluth-Superior Area Community Foundation · Arrowhead Regional Arts Council · Pachel Foundation · Minnesota Historical Society · Northland Foundation · Wildey Mitchell Family Foundation · Ordean Foundation · Minnesota Power Foundation · Minnesota Humanities Center · The McKnight Foundation · Mightycause Charitable 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 The Depot 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.