· Private foundation
The Mick and Sandy Lee 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 $10k16 grants · $30k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $105k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $101k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CALVARY LUTHERAN CHURCH | $100,500 |
| PROVIDENCE ACADEMY | $30,000 |
| TAKE CHARGE | $15,000 |
| CENTER OF THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT | $15,000 |
| UPPER MIDWEST LAW CENTER | $15,000 |
| ALPHA NEWS | $10,200 |
| LAMPLIGHTERS INTERNATIONAL | $10,000 |
| MAZAHUA VALLEY MINISTRIES | $10,000 |
| NOTRE DAME HIGH SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| TANZANIA HEALTH PARTNERSHIP | $5,000 |
| NORTHEAST BANK FOUNDATION | $4,000 |
| HERITAGE FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| PRAGER U | $2,500 |
| MN FAMILY INSTITUTE | $2,500 |
| HILLSDALE COLLEGE | $2,000 |
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 (FY22–24, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 93% 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +17% since the first grant, against +12% for the ones you funded once.
26 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 7 since wound down; 4 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1k 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
- PAPROVIDENCE ACADEMY8× · 2017–2024 · $235k · revenue +12%
- COCenter of the American Experiment6× · 2019–2024 · $93k · revenue +17%
- ANALPHA NEWS5× · 2020–2024 · $65k · revenue +285%
Funded once
- TCTHE CRU FOUNDATIONone grant, 2018 · $15k
- CCRUone grant, 2021 · $10k
- UAUKRAINIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY CENTER INCone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue -29%
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.
Evangel is a comprehensive christian university that is committed to excellence in educating and equipping students to become spirit empowered servants of god who will impact the church and society globally.
The mission of crown college is to provide a biblically based education for christian leadership in the christian and missionary alliance, the church-at-large, and the world.
Union college is a seventh-day adventist community of higher education, inspired by jesus christ, and dedicated to empowering students to learn, serve, and lead.
Christianity Today is a global community inspired by evangelical conviction to advance the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God. Our mission is to elevate the storytellers and sages of the global church.
Luther classical college educates lutherans in the classical, lutheran tradition and prepares them for godly vocations within family, church, and society, fostering christian culture through study of the best of our western heritage.
Mid-america christian university prepares students through a wesleyan perspective to create, collaborate, and innovate to solve local and global problems for the glory of god through jesus christ and the good of society.
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
Liberty classical academy is an independent private school offering college-preparatory academics and christian faith in the classical tradition for minneapolis-st. paul students in preschool and kindergarten through the 12th grade.
Arizona christian university provides a biblically-integrated, liberal arts education equipping graduates to serve the lord jesus christ in all aspects of life, as leaders of influence and excellence.
Preparing people for a life of learning, work, and service for Christ and His kingdom.
Geneva college is a christ-centered academic community that provides a comprehensive education to equip students for faithful and fruitful service to god and neighbor.
Global scholars exists so that christian academics are adequately equipped to have a redemptive influence among their students, colleagues, universities and disciplines, at a reasonable cost.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Heritage Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Hillsdale College. 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 25 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.
23 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. 23 of the 50 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 PROVIDENCE ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds LUTHER COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Center of the American Experiment ↗
- Who funds TANZANIA HEALTH PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds ALPHA NEWS ↗
- Who funds UPPER MIDWEST LAW CENTER ↗
- Who funds MAZAHUA VALLEY MINISTRIEs ↗
- Who funds HOPE ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds LAMPLIGHTERS INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PRAGER UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HILLSDALE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds YOUNG LIFE ↗
- Who funds The Charlemagne Institute ↗
- Who funds UKRAINIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Poetice ↗
- Who funds THE FELLOWSHIP OF AILBE ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Minnesota Teen Challenge Inc ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF NGONG ROAD ↗
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 · Pine Rock Foundation Inc · Michael J & Karen B Frey Foundation · Caridad Corporation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Thrivent Financial for Lutherans · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · United Way Worldwide · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The US Charitable Gift Trust · 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 Mick and Sandy Lee 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.
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.