How much does The Olseth Foundation give?

The Olseth Foundation reported 57 grants totaling $926,738 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 44 and 57 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does The Olseth Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Environment (29%), Education (19%), Arts & Culture (9%).

Who are The Olseth Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Recharge America Inc ($505k), St Olaf College ($360k), Planned Parenthood North Central States ($275k).

Does The Olseth Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 7% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Olseth Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Olseth Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, The Minneapolis Foundation, Mayo Clinic Group Return.

Where is The Olseth Foundation based?

The Olseth Foundation is based in MN.

The Olseth Foundation

The Olseth Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Olseth 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.

$927k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$100k

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, FY2020 to 2025.

Environment$1.6MEducation$1.1MArts & Culture$495kHousing & Shelter$463kFood & Nutrition$424kHealth$418kPhilanthropy$383kCivil Rights$245kOther$0

02FY2025 · 57 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k26 grants · $122k
$10k–50k27 grants · $502k
$50k–250k4 grants · $303k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$19M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC (WWF)	$100,000
RECHARGE AMERICA INC	$90,000
ST OLAF COLLEGE	$60,000
THE ADVOCATES FOR HUMAN RIGHTS	$53,000
GREATER MANKATO AREA UNITED WAY INC	$46,500
OREGON NATURAL RESOURCES COUNCIL FUND (OREGON WILD)	$35,000
PATH HOME (FORMERLY PHFS)	$30,000
THE LIBRARY FOUNDATION INC	$30,000
MANKATO AREA FOUNDATION	$28,000
JUNGLE THEATER	$25,000
FRIENDS OF THE HENNEPIN COUNTY LIBRARY	$22,000
PEOPLE SERVING PEOPLE INC	$20,000
OREGON WILDLIFE FOUNDATION	$20,000
MINNEAPOLIS AMERICAN INDIAN CENTER	$20,000
PLANNED PARENTHOOD NORTH CENTRAL STATES	$20,000

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 (FY20–25, $203k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% 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.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 8% of The Olseth Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.

The Olseth Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 3.6% directed abroad (not shown)

How this is measured

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 funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

98%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$5.4M · 62 repeat orgs$134k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +46% since the first grant, against +20% for those funded once.

62 repeat relationships: 44 still active in FY2025, 18 since wound down; 12 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$5.4M

$71k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+46%

+20%

Still filing today

85%

42%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $63k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureEducationEnvironmentHuman ServicesHealthHousing & ShelterOther

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

RA
RECHARGE AMERICA INC
6× · 2020–2025 · $505k · revenue +56%
SO
ST OLAF COLLEGE
6× · 2020–2025 · $360k · revenue +57%
PP
PLANNED PARENTHOOD NORTH CENTRAL STATES
6× · 2020–2025 · $275k · revenue +34%

Funded once

MC
MINNESOTA CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACYgraduated
one grant, 2024 · $15k · revenue +96%
UO
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
one grant, 2024 · $15k
FV
FLATHEAD VALLEY SKATEPARK ASSOCIATION
one grant, 2023 · $10k

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 Business Partnership

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…

—

Minnesota Council on Foundations

MCF is a vibrant philanthropic community connecting, strengthening and mobilizing the power of philanthropy to advance prosperity and equity.

—

Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and Industry

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…

—

Minnesota Medical Association

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

—

Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce

Creating powerful advocacy to enhance economic vitality in the minneapolis-st. paul region.

—

Minnesota Land Trust

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.

Environment

Women Winning

To encourage, promote, support, and elect pro-choice women of all political parties to all levels of public office in minnesota.

Public Benefit

Mn Community Measurement

Mn community measurement empowers stakeholders with meaningful information to drive improvement.

Health

Minneapolis Downtown Council

To create an extraordinary downtown minneapolis, applying the core values of leadership, collaboration, advocacy and innovation.

—

Mill City Farmers Market Inc

Mission: to inspire and nurture a healthy community by building a local, sustainable, and organic food economy in a vibrant experiential marketplace.vision: to be a nationally recognized marketplace model that connects, educates, and…

—

Midwest Dairy Association

Midwest dairy works with others to give consumers an excellent dairy experience increasing sales, fostering innovation, and inspiring consumer confidence of dairy products and practices.

—

African Development Center

Grow businesses, build wealth and increase reinvestement in the african communities of minnesota

Human Services

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University of Minnesota Foundation; the most unlike its peers is Southwest Environmental Center. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

65 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 65 of the 88 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)

65/65

Grantees still filing

51/65

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$2,545,288Education$699,680Arts & Culture$675,000Community Improvement$513,000Housing & Shelter$423,250Health$418,000Environment$382,000

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.

Saint Paul & Minnesota FoundationMN35.2× affinity19 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · The Minneapolis Foundation · Mayo Clinic Group Return · Xcel Energy Foundation · Otto Bremer Trust · Mankato Area Foundation · Valley News Foundation · The McKnight Foundation · Glen a Taylor Foundation · Meyer Memorial Trust · The Oregon Community Foundation · The Collins Foundation

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

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

4get no government money at all

19report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

1rely 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 Olseth Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Olseth 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 Olseth’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