· Private foundation
Marilyn and Glen Nelson Family 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
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $249k
- $250k+1 grant · $499k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MINNESOTA ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION | $499,318 |
| Smith College | $149,304 |
| Guthrie Theater | $99,968 |
| National Endowment for Democracy | $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 (FY20–20, $25k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those 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.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 26% of Marilyn and Glen Nelson Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 71% of the giving stays in MN; read by stated purpose it is 61% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
28 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 24 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
- TTTHE TRUSTEES OF THE SMITH COLLEGE5× · 2020–2025 · $1.2M · revenue +35%
- GTGUTHRIE THEATER FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2025 · $252k · revenue +93%
- MPMINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA3× · 2020–2022 · $166k · revenue +11%
Funded once
- ITINNERCITY TENNIS FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $25k · revenue +47%
- MIMYASWAN INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $25k · revenue +79%
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION FOR A NEW AMERICAN UNIVERSITYgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $20k · revenue +93%
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.
To be the leading voice of medicine to make minnesota the healthiest state and the best place to practice.
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.
National public radio, inc. ("npr") works collaboratively with member public radio station licensees ("member stations") to create a more informed public, one that is challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of…
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 npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
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 create an extraordinary downtown minneapolis, applying the core values of leadership, collaboration, advocacy and innovation.
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…
The minnesota state fair foundation's mission is to preserve and improve the historic minnesota state fairgrounds and support state fair programs and projects in agriculture, arts & culture, education, the environment, and history.
The minnesota land trust protects and restores minnesota's most vital natural lands in order to provide wildlife habitat, clean water, outdoor experiences and scenic beauty for generations to come.
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University of Minnesota Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Grand Teton National Park 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 47 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.
40 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. 40 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 MINNESOTA ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF THE SMITH COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds GUTHRIE THEATER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA ↗
- Who funds FairVote Minnesota Foundation ↗
- Who funds Breck School ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY ↗
- Who funds GRAND TETON MUSIC FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY SUPPORT FUND INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NOMI NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds MINNEAPOLIS SOCIETY OF FINE ARTS DBA MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS ↗
- Who funds MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds PARK NICOLLET FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INNERCITY TENNIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MYASWAN INC ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION FOR A NEW AMERICAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds TWIN CITIES PUBLIC TELEVISION INC ↗
- Who funds Minneapolis Parks Foundation ↗
- Who funds VOCALESSENCE ↗
- Who funds Intl Soc For Cardiovascular Tran Res ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN SWEDISH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds TANZANIA HEALTH PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds FILMNORTH ↗
- Who funds NORTHSIDE ACHIEVEMENT ZONE ↗
- Who funds Family Tree Inc ↗
- Who funds ECPAT-USA INC ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA SPAY & NEUTER ASSISTANCE PROGRAM PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WILDLIFE ART OF THE UNITED STATES ↗
- Who funds COURAGE KENNY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM HOUSE ↗
- Who funds GREATER TWIN CITIES UNITED WAY ↗
- Who funds GIRL SCOUTS OF MN AND WI RIVER VALLEYS 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: The Minneapolis Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Margaret a Cargill Foundation · George Family Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · Fr Bigelow Foundation · Pohlad Family Foundation · The McKnight Foundation · Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing · Ch Robinson Worldwide Foundation · United Way Worldwide
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 Marilyn and Glen Nelson 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.
- The Trustees of the Smith College — 1% of income from government
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.
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How do I get to Marilyn and Glen Nelson Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Marilyn and Glen Nelson Family 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.