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Minnesota · Nonprofit

CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL

CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL (Minnesota) receives grants from 3 organizations whose IRS filings report $347,248 to it, the largest being RED WING SHOE COMPANY FOUNDATION ($178,700). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year.

Revenue FY2025
$1.8M
Funders on record
3
Grants received
$347k
Net assets
$-75852
2/3 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 4%
01What it does

What Creekstone Montessori School does

Mission

Creekstone Montessori School's mission is to provide a learning environment that embraces a child's natural desire to learn and to empower all children to grow thier full, social, academic, and emotional potential through montessori principles and methods of education. Our purpose is simple: to inspire a lifelong passion for learning and build the foundations for profound respect towards humanity and the natural world.

As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.

Program

  1. Creekstone Montessori School is a charter school.

    $1,423,000 spent$93,697 earned by the program
    100% of program spending

The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,423,000.

02The organization over time

The organization over time

Each line starts at 100 in 2023, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2023, 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.

100 = 20232023 Revenue 100 ($1.7M) Expenses 100 ($1.5M) Net assets 100 ($201k)2024 Revenue 108 ($1.8M) Expenses 142 ($2.1M) Net assets -63 ($-126465)2025 Revenue 109 ($1.8M) Expenses 118 ($1.8M) Net assets -38 ($-75852)
202320242025
Revenue (109)Expenses (118)Net assets (-38)Peer revenue range

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 $683k to $1.0M (+47%).

$683k
$1.0M
$1.1M
202320242025
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

2023
2024
2025
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

Government-grant reliance: 2023 82% · 2024 87% · 2025 94%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.

95% of CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (48% for the typical peer).

This organization
Typical peer · 12,352 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 3 reported years ran a deficit.

$167k
’23
−$327k
’24
$51k
’25
2.4
months of
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.

Chief executive

Dr Michelle Sturm

Executive director

Board chair

Perry Sekus

Chair

As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.

202320242025
Listed656
Joined·+2+1
No longer listed·30
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2022 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 2 funders, grant income fell $178k → $72k.

Funder
'22
'23
'24*
total
funders
1
2
2

1 of 3 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 17% 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 CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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

CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL leans on a few funders — its largest provides 51% of grant income and the top three 100%; half comes from just 1 funder.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left

49% 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 CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL.

51%
largest funder
100%
top three
~3
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2022 100% · 2023 99% — broadly stable.

“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.

Where its funders are

100% of CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL's grant income comes from Minnesota funders.

MN

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’22
’23
Minnesota out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $60k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state 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.

04Its place in the field

Against its field

CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL receives grants from 3 organizations whose IRS filings report $347k to it.

Operating margin3% · below the median
Months of reserve2.4mo · below the median
Revenue growth (annualized)5% · below the median

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,398 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025

Government funding CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL receives

Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $29k on record.

Federal$29k
grants $29kcontracts $0
Top agencies
  • Department of Education$29k

Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.

Organizations like CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL

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

05Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

81% of spending goes to programs.

Program 81%Management 19%Fundraising 0%

Governance

5
board members
60%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy✓Whistleblower policy✓Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990✓Audited financials

Footprint & structure

Files a return copy in 1 state

MN

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL: 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.

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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 CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL?
CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL (Minnesota) receives grants from 3 organizations whose IRS filings report $347,248 to it, the largest being RED WING SHOE COMPANY FOUNDATION ($178,700). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year.
How many funders does CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL have?
IRS filings report 3 organizations giving $347,248 in grants to CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL, 2 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL?
RED WING SHOE COMPANY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $178,700 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like CREEKSTONE MONTESSORI SCHOOL 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 Creekstone Montessori School →

These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2023–2025), and the filings of 3 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 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing