· Private foundation
The Helgeson 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 $10k20 grants · $78k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $109k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Climate Generation | $15,000 |
| Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center | $13,500 |
| Voyageur Outward Bound School | $13,500 |
| Cedar Cultural Center | $13,000 |
| Brownbody | $11,500 |
| Interact | $11,500 |
| The Loppet Foundation | $10,500 |
| Penumbra Theatre Company Inc | $10,000 |
| Wilderness Inquiry | $10,000 |
| Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop | $9,000 |
| American Composers Forum | $7,500 |
| Twin Cities Jazz Festival | $7,000 |
| Center For Irish Music | $6,500 |
| Tru Art Speaks | $5,500 |
| Friends of the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $54k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% 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.
38 repeat relationships — 29 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- TLTHE LOPPET FOUNDATION INC9× · 2017–2025 · $84k · revenue +43%
- BBROWNBODY6× · 2020–2025 · $74k · revenue +356%
- WIWILDERNESS INQUIRY INC9× · 2017–2025 · $59k · revenue +150%
Funded once
- TNTHE NATURE CONSERVANCYone grant, 2017 · $10k
- TSTHE SIERRA CLUB FNDN OUTDOORS MNone grant, 2019 · $6k
- TSTHE SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION INSPIRING CONNECTIONS OUTDOORSMINNESOTA ICOone grant, 2018 · $5k
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.
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…
Mixed Blood Theatre Company uses theater to disrupt injustice. We are a social justice organization catalyzing action and change through art. Our work is guided by deep community engagement and rooted in radical hospitality.
Support and enhance the development of the arts in northwestern minnesota. facilitate and encourage the creation and appreciation of the arts.
Minnesota Brass shares a unique passion for the live performing arts by producing ensembles and events that challenge our members to reach their full potential while inspiring our audiences.
Minnesota Voice is a collaboration of organizations working toward permanent change in social, racial, and economic justice by increasing civic engagement and voter participation across the state.
To promote and enhance the creation, performance, and appreciation of the arts in the minnesota counties of benton, sherburne, stearns and wright by providing grants and services to arts and community organizations, cities, schools and…
Grow businesses, build wealth and increase reinvestement in the african communities of minnesota
Minnesota fringe connects adventurous artists with adventurous audiences by creating open, supportive forums for free and diverse artistic expression.
Wonderlust Productions is a multicultural, multi-disciplinary arts ensemble that illuminates a community's story through performance, mixing community members from across generations, ethnicities, and perspectives, alongside an ensemble of…
Our mission is to build a vibrant community fueled by the arts. We enrich lives by connecting, celebrating, inspiring, and leading through shared art experiences. Our vision is a community alive with creativity.
In the belief that the visual arts are indispensable to a healthy community, it is the mission of the minnetonka center for the arts to provide teaching excellence, quality exhibitions, and cultural enrichment for people of all ages,…
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Truartspeaks and the most unlike its peers is Ernest C Oberholtzer Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 27 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 9% 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.
34 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. 34 of the 48 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 CLIMATE GENERATION ↗
- Who funds The Cedar Cultural Center Inc ↗
- Who funds THE LOPPET FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds VOYAGEUR OUTWARD BOUND SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds BROWNBODY ↗
- Who funds WILDERNESS INQUIRY INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN COMPOSERS FORUM ↗
- Who funds PENUMBRA THEATRE COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds WOLF RIDGE ENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING CENTER ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA PRISON WRITING WORKSHOP ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR IRISH MUSIC ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA MENS CONFERENCE ↗
- Who funds TRUARTSPEAKS ↗
- Who funds ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PARAMOUNT CENTER FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds Spark Youth ↗
- Who funds THE M2 FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HOPEWELL MUSIC COOPERATIVE-NORTH ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF SHERBURNE NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE INC ↗
- Who funds JAZZ CENTRAL STUDIOS ↗
- Who funds Youth Farm and Market Project ↗
- Who funds ARTICULTURE ↗
- Who funds WALKER WEST MUSIC ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Indigenous Roots ↗
- Who funds IN PROGRESS ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA ↗
- Who funds COMMUSICATION ↗
- Who funds Twin Cities Community Gospel Choir ↗
- Who funds GREAT RIVER GREENING ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN INDIAN COMMUNITY HOUSING ORGANIZATION ↗
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: The Minneapolis Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · The McKnight Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Fr Bigelow Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · Marbrook Foundation · Minnesota Humanities Center · Propel Nonprofits · Elmer L & Eleanor J Andersen Foundation · Patrick and Aimee Butler Family · Hrk 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 Helgeson 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Helgeson Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Helgeson 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.