Minnesota · Nonprofit
Breakthrough Twin Cities
Breakthrough Twin Cities (Minnesota) receives grants from 59 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,821,867 to it, the largest being CARGILL FOUNDATION ($1,246,000). 47 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.8M
- Funders on record
- 59
- Grants received
- $6.8M
- Net assets
- $1.5M
What Breakthrough Twin Cities does
Mission
Breakthrough Twin Cities supports students on their journey to college by fostering a community of mutual learning with the next generation of educators so they both can collaborate, grow, and thrive.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Breakthrough Twin Cities (BTC) provides a six-year, tuition-free college access and teacher-development program serving underrepresented youth in grades 712 in the Twin Cities. Students participate in academic enrichment, social-emotional learning, and college-readiness programming during a 5.5-week summer program and monthly school-year sessions. Students also receive individualized advising, mentorship, and referrals to community resources. In Summer 2024, BTC served 448 students (nearly 100 more than last year) across three sites. Students received 100+ hours of core academic instruction and participated in STEM, arts, and college-and-career exploration electives. Dedicated STEM programming was delivered in partnership with the University of Minnesota, including hands-on experiments, career panels, and immersive activities. Students participated in field trips focused on college access and civic engagement, including visits to local colleges and the Minnesota State Capitol. Middle School Outcomes (2024 - 25) - 55% enrolled in at least one. honors course, -78% felt better prepared for the next school year, -83% reported strong college-going role models, -88% felt a strong sense…
$1,935,565 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,935,565.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2023 to 2024, from $1.8M to $2.3M (+30%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 2% · 2018 5% · 2019 5% · 2021 16% · 2022 18% · 2023 5% · 2024 33% · 2025 39%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
94% of Breakthrough Twin Cities’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (48% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Board chair
Tanya Schmitt
Chairman
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 14 funders to 30 funders, grant income rose $318k → $1.1M.
10 of 59 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 20% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of Breakthrough Twin Cities’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 59 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
Breakthrough Twin Cities has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 18% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left
40% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund Breakthrough Twin Cities.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 33% · 2018 24% · 2019 15% · 2020 31% · 2021 21% · 2022 28% · 2023 30% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
50% of Breakthrough Twin Cities's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 80% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
95% of Breakthrough Twin Cities's grant income comes from Minnesota funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.4M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
Breakthrough Twin Cities holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 9,615 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,615 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Breakthrough Twin Cities
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Minnesota
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
83% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
93%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Breakthrough Twin Cities: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Breakthrough Twin Cities?
- Breakthrough Twin Cities (Minnesota) receives grants from 59 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,821,867 to it, the largest being CARGILL FOUNDATION ($1,246,000). 47 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Breakthrough Twin Cities have?
- IRS filings report 59 organizations giving $6,821,867 in grants to Breakthrough Twin Cities, 47 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Breakthrough Twin Cities?
- CARGILL FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,246,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Breakthrough Twin Cities find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Minnesota. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Breakthrough Twin Cities →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 59 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing