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Minnesota · Nonprofit

ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION

ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION (Minnesota) receives grants from 11 organizations whose IRS filings report $469,990 to it, the largest being THE MINNEAPOLIS FOUNDATION ($214,500). 7 of them have funded it in more than one year.

Revenue FY2024
$554k
Funders on record
11
Grants received
$470k
Net assets
$1.8M
7/11 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 25%
01What it does

What Ernest C Oberholtzer Foundation does

Program

  1. The direct charitable activities of the foundation are as a wilderness research and learning center whose activities occur between may through october due to weather.the center is used primarily as a resource for ecological education, creative expression and study by artists, writers, naturalists, organizational leaders, researchers using oberholtzer's extensive library, and those learning about the ojibwe language and culture.

    $93,126 spent

The program described on its FY2024 Form 990-PF.

02The organization over time

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.

100 = 20172017 Revenue 100 ($227k) Expenses 100 ($113k) Net assets 100 ($794k)2018 Revenue 83 ($188k) Expenses 110 ($124k) Net assets 108 ($858k)2019 Revenue 61 ($138k) Expenses 108 ($121k) Net assets 110 ($874k)2020 Revenue 69 ($157k) Expenses 101 ($113k) Net assets 116 ($918k)2021 Revenue 87 ($199k) Expenses 109 ($122k) Net assets 125 ($995k)2022 Revenue 125 ($284k) Expenses 126 ($142k) Net assets 143 ($1.1M)2023 Revenue 210 ($477k) Expenses 166 ($187k) Net assets 179 ($1.4M)2024 Revenue 244 ($554k) Expenses 159 ($178k) Net assets 227 ($1.8M)
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24
Revenue (244)Expenses (159)Net assets (227)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 $1.4M to $1.8M (+26%).

$794k
$858k
$874k
$918k
$995k
$1.1M
$1.4M
$1.8M
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

The chief executive listed changed between the FY2020 and FY2021 filings.

'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24
Listed65555554
Joined·+0+1+1+3+1+0+0
No longer listed·1113101
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 6 funders, grant income rose $41k → $61k.

3 of 11 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 48% 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 ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION’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

ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION leans on a few funders — its largest provides 46% of grant income and the top three 87%; half comes from just 2 funders.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left

81% 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 ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION.

46%
largest funder
87%
top three
~3
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 98% · 2018 65% · 2019 44% · 2020 85% · 2021 83% · 2022 36% · 2023 41% — 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

33% of ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 64% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y+3y+4y

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

83% of ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION's grant income comes from Minnesota funders.

MN
IL
WI
MO

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

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
Minnesota out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $225k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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.

04Its place in the field

Against its field

ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 17,936 arts & culture nonprofits its size.

Months of reserve22.7mo · top quartile
Revenue growth (annualized)14% · above the median

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 17,936 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024

Organizations like ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION

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.

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION: 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 ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION?
ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION (Minnesota) receives grants from 11 organizations whose IRS filings report $469,990 to it, the largest being THE MINNEAPOLIS FOUNDATION ($214,500). 7 of them have funded it in more than one year.
How many funders does ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION have?
IRS filings report 11 organizations giving $469,990 in grants to ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION, 7 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION?
THE MINNEAPOLIS FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $214,500 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like ERNEST C OBERHOLTZER FOUNDATION 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.

These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 11 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