· Public charity
Vibrant & Safe Downtown
To bring the public & private sectors together by collaborative safety, greening & other initiatives & projects that enhance downtown & improve the safety of the area, making the heart of downtown minneapolis safe & welcoming for those who work, live or visit.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2024.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
How this is measured
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $6k
- $250k+2 grants · $628k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MINNEAPOLIS DOWNTOWN COUNCIL | $371,777 |
| MARKETING MINNEAPOLIS LLC | $256,236 |
| MINNEAPOLIS POLICE FEDERATION | $5,500 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY18–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 6%. 98% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue -1% since the first grant, against -49% for those funded once.
3 repeat relationships: 2 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 1 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, 60% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $256k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- MDMINNEAPOLIS DOWNTOWN COUNCIL4× · 2021–2024 · $2.3M
- MDMINNEAPOLIS DOWNTOWN COUNCIL3× · 2018–2020 · $575k · revenue -1%
- MPMINNEAPOLIS POLICE FEDERATION4× · 2021–2024 · $50k
Funded once
- MDMINNEAPOLIS DOWNTOWN IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTone grant, 2023 · $60k · revenue +7%
- MPMINNEAPOLIS POLICE HONOR GUARDone grant, 2020 · $36k
- VSVIBRANT & SAFE DOWNTOWNone grant, 2021 · $34k · revenue -49%
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.
5 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
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 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 5 of the 98 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.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.
Open a dossier: The Minneapolis Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Vibrant & Safe Downtown funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Vibrant & Safe Downtown. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Play a game based on Vibrant & Safe Downtown’s filings →